


Miles to Go Before I Sleep

by MugetsuPipefox



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-27
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 04:11:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 127
Words: 261,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2678567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MugetsuPipefox/pseuds/MugetsuPipefox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of one-shots/drabbles focusing on Jack and his life both before and after he becomes a Guardian. No particular order. No pairings/romance. Requests closed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Opposites

There were only a few rare instances in his 300 years of solitude where Jack Frost had more than a one-sided conversation. And even those were just times when he had messed up something and the other spirits were having a go at him. But he would take what he could get.  
  
Perhaps that was why he held the record on the Naughty List.  
  
Through mainly accident, Jack had been made acquainted with the other seasonal spirits. The first one he’d met was May Queen; the spirit of spring. He’d been enjoying the last few days of winter when she’d shown up, melting snow and blooming flowers with a touch of her fingers. He’d been shocked to say the least when she’d turned to him and asked, a strange, almost disapproving glint in her eyes, why he was still hanging around. She had a sweet nature, but took her position as a spring spirit a little too seriously.  
  
He had been following May’s urgings to follow the weather when he discovered Ceres, the autumn spirit. She had not been happy when his frost had shrivelled the last of the golden leaves and covered the world in snow. She was not a fan of winter and, by extension, she hated him. She always put up such a fuss when he swept in and ‘ruined all her hard work’. But, again, at least she spoke to him – well, yelled and complained, but close enough.  
  
He often wondered about the summer spirit, never having personally met him. He had nagged May one day until she’d finally reached the point where she could no longer pretend he wasn’t there and just told him what he wanted to know so he would go away. According to her, the summer spirit was called Lleu.  
  
But, of course, being the embodiment of summer, actually getting the opportunity to meet him was highly unlikely. They were complete opposites and winter and summer were separated by spring and autumn. There was no way Ceres would take kindly to him passing through autumn in the middle of the season considering her hostility in what should have been a neutral time. And, while May was willing to put up with him between seasons, he didn’t want to push her too far. So, for a long time, Jack never got to meet his opposite.

 

* * *

  


The weather was starting to warm up, the snow melting as the area got further and further into spring. May had yet to show up in Burgess, and Jack was fairly sure it was because she was avoiding the risk of running into him.  
  
He had yet to move on with the rest of winter, opting to sit on the bank of his lake and watching as the ice slowly melted. He wasn’t sure what stayed him – he really should have moved on by now. And yet, there he was.  
  
A blast of hot air washed overhead, blowing his bangs out of his face.  
  
“Hmm, white hair… frost covered stick… pasty complexion… you must be Jack Frost,” an unfamiliar voice called from above.  
  
“It’s a staff,” Jack corrected automatically, turning in time to watch a red-haired boy – a few years older than him in appearance – touch down a little ways away.  
  
“Ooh, someone’s touchy,” the red-head smirked, straightening his wind-swept clothes.  
  
“Who are you?” Jack asked in mild curiosity, although he thought he had a pretty good idea.  
  
The newcomer raised a hand to his chest in mock offence. “What? You haven’t heard of me?” Jack raised an eyebrow and the red-head rolled his eyes. “The name’s Lleu; spirit of summer.”  
  
Jack felt a smile come to his face and he pushed himself to his feet. “What are you doing all the way out here? You know summer’s not for another three months, right?”  
  
“I could ask you the same thing. In fact, that’s partly the reason I’m here,” Lleu sighed and leaned his back against a nearby tree. “May’s been whinging to me about a certain winter spirit who just won’t seem to leave.”  
  
“So she sent you to get rid of me? Nice.”  
  
“Not really. Just let her think that. Honestly, I just wanted to get a glimpse of the infamous Jack Frost.”  
  
The remnants of snow that had been littering the branches and the ground around Lleu had all but melted by this point, and it seemed the heat he was radiating was starting to spread.  
  
“Are you sure? It kinda looks like she just wanted you to do her job for her,” Jack looked pointedly at the area around the summer spirit, leaning casually on his staff.  
  
Lleu looked mildly surprised, glancing down at his feet. “Eh,” he shrugged. “I’m the embodiment of summer. ‘S bound to have some side effects against the cold. This is why I don’t go where it’s winter.”  
  
Now that he thought about it, Jack realised the air around them was starting to feel warmer, and he could feel perspiration starting to build on his forehead. _Weird_ , he thought, raising a hand to wipe at it.  
  
“What’s the matter, Frost?” Lleu smirked. “Can’t take the heat?”  
  
Jack narrowed his eyes at the jibe. “You wish. What about you, not too cold are you?” But that was impossible. Anything of a low temperature thawed or melted after being near him for only a few moments.  
  
Lleu waved his arms out in front of him. “Do I look cold?”  
  
The wind began to pick up around Jack, swirling about him protectively, as if sensing his growing discomfort.  
  
He could feel his shirt starting to soak up the ever increasing perspiration and almost moved to take off his cloak. But he didn’t want to show any form of weakness to the summer spirit, especially since they were having a proper, two-sided conversation.  
  
Lleu frowned. But it wasn’t an ‘ugh-I-can’t-believe-I-have-to-put-up-with-you’ frown that he usually received. No, this was more like he was _concerned_. But that was ridiculous.  
  
“Look, not that this hasn’t been fun,” the red-head said with heavy sarcasm. “But I’ve got work to do, and so do you. You might want to head off before May shows up.” Without waiting for a reply, the warmer wind lifted Lleu up off the ground and swept him away.  
  
Leaving Jack to look up at the sky; alone once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so the stories/one-shots here are loosely related and some may be referenced to in later chapters. I'm normally not really a fan of OCs, but in a universe like RoTG, there is so much potential! Also I realise that starting with a chapter involving OCs isn't a great idea, but these guys do turn up now and again so I think it might be helpful to you readers if you have some sort of basic knowledge of them...


	2. Of Elves and Staffs Part I

“Didn’t we have him stay over ‘ere so he _wouldn’t_ be late for the meeting?” Bunny grumbled, glaring up at the clock as though it was the reason Jack was late. Again.  
  
“Relax, Bunny,” North replied. “There is still time.”  
  
As if on cue, the doors to the Globe Room burst open as Jack ran in, the frost appearing at his feet a testament to his emotions. He was quickly followed by a very angry looking Phil, although the winter spirit did not even seem aware of the fact as he went about tearing up the room, as if in a frenzied search for something.  
  
North turned to the Easter Bunny and gestured with a raised eyebrow as if to say ‘see?’. Bunny rolled his eyes and focused on Jack, who had yet to even acknowledge their presence in the room.  
  
“Jack,” North called to the boy. Jack gave no indication that he’d heard. “Jack!” he tried again, but with the same results.  
  
Phil continued to chase the boy, making failed attempts to grab him until his foot slipped on a patch of ice and he fell flat on his back.  
  
“Phil,” North held out a hand to help the yeti to his feet. “What is going on?”  
  
Phil replied in yetish, as all yetis do, but North seemed to understand.   
  
“What do you mean he froze workshop?” The Russian glanced over to the spirit in question, who had jumped up onto the fireplace to look behind the tapestry, his frost having unconsciously put out the fire. And that wasn’t easy to do. “Jack!” But again, he was ignored.  
  
Sandy tugged on North’s pants, gaining the large man’s attention. He conjured a ball of dream sand in one hand and pointed to Jack, a question mark appearing above his head.  
  
“No, Sandy,” North put his hands on his hips. “We will try to work this out, ya?”  
  
Tooth flew up in front of Jack and grabbed him by the shoulders, bringing him to a halt. “Sweet Tooth, what’s wrong?”  
  
Jack pulled himself from her grip and jumped down from the fireplace, continuing his search by the bookshelves. “I can’t find it,” he ground out in a mixture of panic and frustration.  
  
“Find what?” she asked, hovering just above the ground beside Bunny.  
  
“My staff.”  
  
“What, you mean that stick?” Bunny scoffed.  
  
“ _Staff_ ,” Jack corrected, moving on to check around the Globe.  
  
“Where did you last have it?” North asked, more sympathetic now that he understood the situation.  
  
“It was with me last night when I went to sleep,” Jack replied absently as he moved across the room again. “But when I woke up it was gone... replaced by a broom handle. I bet it was those damn elves,” he added in an after-thought.  
  
Bunny couldn’t help himself, a few sniggers escaping him. If looks could kill, Bunny would have died from the glare Jack sent him.  
  
North brought a hand to his chin and ‘hmm’ed thoughtfully. “I will have yetis keep eye out.”

 

* * *

 

 

In hindsight, it probably hadn’t been Dingle’s best idea. But it was a bit late for that now. They had wanted to get their hands on a snow globe so they could help North with present delivery. At least, that’s how they justified their actions, conveniently not bringing up the fact that Christmas had passed and the next one was a good ten months away.  
  
Unfortunately for them, the snow globes were stored in a cupboard way out of their reach. Again, there was probably a reason for that, but this was yet another thing conveniently overlooked. The elves had tried a number of things, but nothing had worked. The chairs around the place were far too low and every time they tried to stack themselves they would always fall over.  
  
So they had all set off in search of something they could use to get the globes.   
  
And then Dingle had walked into the guest room where Jack Frost was sleeping. Again, this wasn’t a good idea considering the winter spirit’s reputation for freezing elves, but this wasn’t a good thinking day for Dingle.  
  
And then his eyes had fallen on the staff. The staff that was the conduit for Jack’s wintery magic. The staff that Jack never let out of his sight. The staff that was the perfect size and shape for getting snow globes down off a high shelf.  
  
Dingle took the staff.  
  
Of course, it wasn’t quite as simple as that; the stick was clasped tightly in Jack’s grasp like some kind of security blanket. He’d had to slowly extract the staff while a couple of other elves (which he had called in for the challenge) replaced it with a broom handle. Jack had been none the wiser.  
  
All they had to do now was use it to get a snow globe.  
  
Three elves held the staff at its base, navigating it until it successfully hooked onto the cupboard handle and swung the door open. The elves onlooking cheered as they moved on to stage two. The snow globes were lined up neatly in rows, making it easy to pick one and move to hook the staff behind it. A bunch of elves got into position under the cupboard, ready to catch the globe once it had been knocked down.   
  
At least, they thought they were ready.   
  
The snow globe was knocked forward, rolling slowly forwards and over the edge of the shelf. The elves below scrambled about as the globe plummeted towards them, each trying desperately to get to it before it could hit the floor. So focused were they on what was above, they didn’t keep an eye on where each of them were. They collided with each other, toppling over. There was the sound of glass breaking as the snow globe smashed into the wooden floor.  
  
The elves gaped, horrified, as a portal opened above the globe, and scrambled to hold onto something as the vacuum-like force tried to suck them in. Dingle’s grip on Jack’s staff slipped and he could only watch helplessly as the stick was pulled into the portal. There was a second’s pause before the portal collapsed on itself and silenced reigned once more.  
  
They were so dead.


	3. Just Him and the Wind Part I

“We need vacation,” North announced from his seat at the head of the table.  
  
They were in the middle of a Guardian meeting and, after the usual rounds of Christmas-vs.-Easter arguing from North and Bunny, and banter between Jack and Bunny, North had gotten fed up and decided that some time off was in order.   
  
“What about my tooth collection and Sandy’s dream-delivery?” Tooth asked.  
  
“We could just go for a day,” Jack shrugged. Being the Guardian of Fun, he was always ready for a good time. What was better than a day off?  
  
Sandy nodded his head in eager agreement and Tooth smiled at the compromise.  
  
“Where did ya have in mind?” Bunny asked, looking up from the egg he had been painting.  
  
North ‘hmm’ed, tapping his chin in concentration. “What about snowboarding?”  
  
Bunny looked horrified. “Nah, mate, too cold. Can’t we do something warmer? What about the beach?”  
  
Three sets of worried eyes turned to the winter spirit. But his reaction wasn’t one they would have expected. Jack was sporting a wide smile. He loved the beach; well, he loved freezing the waves, anyway.  
  
Sandy created an image of the sun above his head, followed by a question mark.  
  
“As long as there’s shade and it’s not too hot, there’s no problem,” Jack replied to the silent query.   
  
“It’s decided then,” North boomed jollily. “Next weekend we go to beach!”

 

* * *

 

 

The beach they had chosen was secluded and currently experiencing the start of spring. Palm trees and plant life lined the edge of the sand, providing plenty of shady places for them to set up – laying down beach towels and a picnic lunch among other things. For once, no one seemed to have anything to complain about.  
  
“Do you think the water will be cold?” Tooth cast a worrying glance at the ocean lapping lazily up against the sand.   
  
“Prob’ly,” Bunny replied, rolling his shoulder. “It’s only been spring here for a couple o’ weeks.”  
  
“Don’t let that stop you, Toothy!” North exclaimed, running for the water in his ridiculous red and white striped swimsuit.   
  
The four remaining on the sand watched wide-eyed as the Cossack plunged into the ocean, not stopping even when a gasp escaped him as the icy water touched his skin. With a laugh, Tooth and Bunny chased after him.  
  
Sandy, who couldn’t enter the water without falling apart, turned to Jack, a series of symbols appearing above his head.  
  
“Uh, no thanks,” Jack said, suppressing a shudder. “I think I’ll stay out here with you.” As silly as it sounded, the thought that he might be expected to swim hadn’t even crossed his mind. It wasn’t that he couldn’t swim – he could – but even before he’d gotten his memories back, he’d had this inexplicable fear of water. The memories had only provided an explanation; and served to increase his phobia.   
  
It sounded silly even in his own mind, being the spirit of winter – commander of ice and snow – and being scared of the liquid form. And so far, he’d been okay. He’d been alone. There was no one there to push or tease him.   
  
Until now.  
  
“Oi, Frostbite!” Bunny called, wading chest-deep in the cold water. “You comin’ in?!”  
  
“Nah, I’d probably just freeze it,” Jack replied, fishing for excuses.  
  
“Is already frozen!” North so helpfully supplied.  
  
Jack groaned quietly. “No, really, I’m good. Sandy and I will just sit out here.” To make his point, he plopped down beside the Sandman, helping him dig a moat around the castle the small man was building. He looked up as a shadow fell over the pair of them to see Bunnymund standing over them with his arms crossed.  
  
“What?” Jack asked with more bite in his tone than he’d intended.   
  
“C’mon, Frostbite, what’s the problem?”  
  
“What problem? There is no problem.”  
  
“Then why aren’t you comin’ in with us?”  
  
Jack resisted the urge to bang his head against a tree. “Uh… someone should stay here with Sandy so he’s not by himself.”  
  
Sandy looked up at the mention of his name and smiled, waving his hand in an ‘it’s okay, you go’ gesture.  
  
 _Gee, thanks, Sandy_ , Jack thought spitefully.   
  
“Hang on,” Bunny smirked. “You’re not _scared_ are you?”  
  
It was said in jest, but Jack was rooted in shock in how quickly he had hit the proverbial nail on the head. “What?! _No!_ ”  
  
“Then there’s no problem if I do this.”   
  
Without warning, Bunny reached out and grabbed the winter spirit, hauling him over his shoulder. Jack cried out, his staff slipping through his fingers and landing with a soft plunk in the sand.  
  
“Ah! Hey!” Jack gasped, struggling to free himself as he was carried towards the water’s edge, his fear intensifying with every step. “No! Bunny! No, no, no, no, _no_!”  
  
But Bunny ignored him.   
  
“Bunny, maybe you shouldn’t…” Tooth bit her lip, swimming a little closer to them as if to interfere.  
  
It wasn’t until the water had reached halfway up the Pooka’s chest that Jack was released – and not in a way he would have liked. Two strong, furry paws grabbed the winter spirit around the midsection and, paying no attention to Jack’s ever increasing panic, threw him unceremoniously into the water.  
  
The second his body came into contact with the water, Jack’s world became a mix of past and present. Even as he desperately tried to swim to the surface, the fear and memory of the crushing cold and water filling lungs continued to push him down; down, further into the darkening depths. In a matter of moments the boundary between what had passed and what was now was wiped away – a weird hybrid of the two taking its place.  
  
The absolute terror that filled him seized his limbs and he found himself sinking further into the water. He opened his mouth to cry out but all that escaped him was a stream of bubbles. Water began to fill his lungs and darkness crept onto the edges of his vision. In such a state was he that he didn’t even notice his powers stretching out around him, beginning to freeze the water that was causing him such distress.  
  
Paws, the same paws that had caused all this, grabbed Jack by the hood of his jumper and pulled him up and out of the water.   
  
Someone was talking to him but to Jack it was just droning in the background. Gasping for breath, he clung onto the body holding him up, wrapping his shaking arms around the Pooka’s neck and burying his face into the furry shoulder – too shaken to be embarrassed. His whole body was racked with shivers. And it wasn’t because he was cold.  
  
“-stbite?”   
  
That had been far too close for comfort. Pitch was probably having a field day.  
  
“Jack!”  
  
Bunny’s voice finally broke through to him and Jack, not bothering to look up, mumbled, “I’m fine.”  
  
“No, you’re clearly not, mate.” The words were spoken softly, and Bunny didn’t even try to pry the terrified winter spirit off him. Wrapping supportive arms around his charge, Bunny began the trek back to shore.  
  
Sandy had hurried forward and he, alongside North and Tooth, watched in concern as the Easter Bunny placed Jack gently onto the sand. As soon as his contact with Bunny was removed, Jack curled up on his side, his face buried into his knees.  
  
“Sweet Tooth?” Tooth called softly, kneeling down beside the unnaturally pale boy – even for him.  
  
“Mm?”   
  
“Why didn’t you say you couldn’t swim?!” Bunny asked, the reality of the situation sinking in and harshening his tone.  
  
Jack tilted his head just enough to glance up at him. “I _can_ swim.”  
  
“Then what the bloody hell was that?!”  
  
“Bunny!” Tooth reprimanded.  
  
“What? He was all excited about coming here back at the pole!” Bunny snapped. “So what happened, Frostbite?”  
  
Jack didn’t answer, shutting his eyes and turning away. A jumble of undecipherable words was all the response they got.  
  
“What?” Bunny frowned.  
  
Jack gave a frustrated growl, quickly getting to his feet and hurrying over to where his staff was still lying. “I said I was scared, okay?!” The wind picked up as soon as Jack’s hand came into contact with the wood, as if trying to comfort the Guardian of Fun. “I… Drowning was how I died.”  
  
When the silence that followed grew to be too uncomfortable to put up with any longer, Jack turned around slowly to face his fellow Guardians. They were all staring at him, openly gaping. With growing horror, it dawned on Jack that he was even less like them than he thought.   
  
They had never died.  
  
Jack staggered backwards as if he’d been struck, his staff clutched to his chest in a white-knuckled grip. The others seemed to snap out of their stupor, holding their hands out towards him, but, right then, all Jack could think of was the need to get away. To be alone. Like he’d always been. Like he always would be. Even when he’d thought he was starting to belong, that he was part of a family… he was always alone.  
  
A strong gust of wind wrapped around him, enveloping him in its icy tendrils, and he allowed it to lift him up, high into the air.  
  
That was how it should be; how it had always been. Just him and the wind.


	4. Of Elves and Staffs Part II

The elves were avoiding him. Jack knew it. On a regular day, he would have run into dozens of them by now, but so far he hadn’t even heard the jingle of their pointed hats. That was suspicious enough to make him believe they were responsible for the disappearance of his staff.  
  
They’d better hope they hadn’t done something to it.  
  
It was Sandy who found the first clue – a smashed snow globe and an open door to the cupboard they were stored in. Of course, there were no elves in sight.  
  
“This can’t be good,” Jack muttered, glaring at the broken globe as if it had personally hidden the elves and his staff from him.  
  
And so the search continued. It was hours before Phil burst into the Globe Room, a panicked looking elf struggling in his grip.  
  
“Ah, you found elf!” North proclaimed. The other Guardians hurried over, with Jack stepping to the front.  
  
“Where’s my staff?” he asked in a deceptively calm tone.  
  
The elf’s eyes widened as it caught sight of him, increasing its struggles.   
  
“Wrong answer.” Jack reached up and lightly touched one of the elf’s legs, instantly coating the appendage in frost. “Next time it’ll be the rest of you.”  
  
The elf stopped struggling, seeming to sigh as it hung its head. With a weak flap of its arm, it gestured out into the hallway. Following the elf, Tinsel’s, guidance, the Guardians and Phil found themselves looking down once more on the remainders of the snow globe.  
  
“Oh dear,” Tooth murmured.  
  
“Is there any way of knowing where the portal opened up?” Jack asked.  
  
“Is broken, so likely accident,” North hesitantly replied, Tinsel nodding frantically in agreement in the background. “So… no.”  
  
Jack groaned, banging his head against the wall. Abruptly, he turned, freezing Tinsel solid on his way out of the room.  
  
“Where are you going?” Bunny asked, as he and the others hurried after the winter spirit.  
  
“Well, I’m not going to find it standing around here,” Jack called back, not bothering to stop or turn around. “So I’m going to go and ask around – maybe someone’s seen it.”  
  
“And how do you plan to get around without the wind, mate?”  
  
Jack stopped dead in his tracks. With another groan, he turned to the wall and repeated his earlier action. Tooth quickly flew up to him and grabbed his head.  
  
“I’ll send as many fairies as I can spare to go and look,” she offered.  
  
“Right,” North added. “I will take sleigh and cover big open areas like deserts.”  
  
Sandy nodded, creating a symbol of big cities above his head before taking off in a dream-sand plane.   
  
Bunny sighed, realizing he’d been left with the anxious winter spirit. “Ah, well, we’d better get cracking.” With two thumps of his foot, a tunnel opened up and he jumped down.  
  
“If anybody finds staff, come back here and send out the lights,” North instructed.  
  
“If those elves sent my staff into the ocean…” Jack left the sentence hanging as he jumped down the tunnel after Bunny.

 

* * *

 

 

Predictably, the tunnel opened up by the lake in Burgess. Jack took one look at the golden leaves of the surrounding trees and made to jump back into the tunnel. But it had already closed up.  
  
“I thought this’d be as good a place as any to start,” Bunny explained, apparently not having noticed Jack’s discomfort. “How’d I get roped into this?” he sighed.

“You know, I didn’t ask you to help,” Jack grumbled. He would’ve gone off on his own if the wind would still carry him without his staff. While he’d learned that the staff was merely a conduit, he didn’t seem able to fly without it. Plus, it had sentimental value. All the more reason to get it back.  
  
“Forget it,” Bunny shook his head, sniffing the air. “This is probably gonna take a while, so we’d better get started.”

 

* * *

 

 

They searched the woods of Burgess for hours without any luck. Bunny had been unable to ascertain a scent – probably because of all the trees around that were made from the same type of wood. Jack had been exceedingly nervous, too; constantly looking over his shoulder or up into the sky. Normally he would stay far away from autumn once it was in full-swing. He and Ceres were not on the best of terms… especially after that incident on Halloween over a century ago. But as time passed without any signs of the autumn spirit, Jack started to relax until he forgot about her completely, focusing on finding his lost staff.  
  
It was then, of course, that she decided to show up.   
  
At first it didn’t seem like she’d noticed them, and Jack was quick to hide behind Bunny – much to the Guardian of Hope’s protest.  
  
“What are you doin’, Frostbite?” he frowned, crossing his arms.  
  
“Shh!” Jack gestured frantically, peering past Bunny to Ceres, who was scattering leaves around with the wind.  
  
Bunny followed his line of sight, his frown deepening. “It’s just Ceres. What’s the problem?”  
  
Bunny had not heeded his advice of being quiet, and so Ceres, at the mention of her name, turned. Her placid expression quickly turned to anger and disbelief as her eyes landed on Jack. “ _You!_ ” she raged, and Jack winced. “Jack Frost! You have some nerve coming here in the middle of autumn!”  
  
Now Bunny just looked confused. Jack stepped out from behind the Pooka – no sense hiding anymore. And he had never been one to just take without giving. “You do realize this is my home, right?”  
  
“Not in autumn, it’s not,” she glared. “And since when have you two been on such good terms?” she asked, gesturing to Bunny. “I mean, I heard you became a Guardian – _Mother_ knows how that happened – but I didn’t expect anything else to change.”  
  
“Now wait just a second,” Bunny interrupted, taking a step forward. Jack was quick to cut him off, holding out a hand to placate the overgrown rabbit.   
  
“Look, I’m only here to look for something. We’ll stay out of your way and be gone before you know it.”  
  
Ceres narrowed her eyes. “Fine. But you’d better be gone by the time I get back, _Frostbite_.” Without another word, a wind of dancing leaves picked up and carried the plump spirit away.  
  
Jack released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.  
  
“What the bloody hell was that?” Bunny asked.  
  
“Ah, it’s better just to give her what she wants… she can get really scary when she’s mad,” Jack shrugged.  
  
“I take it you know this from experience.” It was clear from his tone that Bunny did not approve.  
  
Jack grinned sheepishly. “We’d better get back to searching. I _really_ don’t want to be here when she gets back.”


	5. Halloween

Jack reclined back against the trunk of the tree he was sitting in. It was sometime in late October and normally he would have been hanging out in Antarctica waiting for winter, but something had drawn him away from the place of endless cold and up north, where autumn continued to reign. He had opted for a secluded area in the countryside – a place where Ceres was unlikely to go so there was little to no risk of being caught by her.  
  
It was a beautiful night; the cloudless sky showing off countless stars and the moon shining down on him. In all rights, he should have been happy.  
  
“Why doesn’t anybody ever see me?” he asked, tilting his head to stare forlornly at the moon. He spoke to the Man in the Moon often, always with the same questions. But MiM never spoke back. And he was always left feeling disappointed and lost. And then he would try again another night and the cycle would continue.  
  
“Why am I even here? For what purpose did you put me here?”  
  
And like always, the only reply was the silence of night.  
  
Jack sighed, rolling his head to the side. “Why don’t you ever talk to me?”  
  
“Probably because I’ve never met you.”  
  
Jack jumped as the sudden voice cut through the silence like a knife. He searched frantically for the source of the voice but there was no one in sight. “Hello?”  
  
“Hello!”  
  
Jack looked up so fast his neck cracked. Lying casually on a branch above him was a young man with jet black hair that looked like he’d just gotten out of bed. He was dressed completely in black, save for the bright orange pumpkin on his head that had a spooky face carved into it. His eyes glowed yellow to match the lantern that was his headgear.  
  
Jack caught his breath, placing a hand over his heart to calm himself.  
  
“Did I scare you?” the stranger asked with a Cheshire grin.  
  
“Yes!” Jack cried indignantly – there was no point in denying it.  
  
“Good.” The stranger swung down, landing nimbly in front of him. “So, who are you?” he asked, his voice lilting like he was asking about a secret crush.  
  
“Jack,” he introduced. “Jack Frost.”  
  
“Ooh! I’ve heard of you! Troublemaker, right?”   
  
Jack frowned but didn’t try to justify himself.  
  
“I’m Jack-O-Lantern,” the creepy guy said smugly. “Also known as the Pumpkin King, or the spirit of Halloween. Nice name, by the way.”  
  
“You too,” Jack replied with a bewildered smile.   
  
“Why don’t you come join us for Halloween?”  
  
Jack almost did a double-take. “What? You want _me_ to go to _your_ party?”   
  
“Sure, why not? It’s not like you’ve got anything better to do, right? Unless of course you’d planned on sitting here talking to MiM all night,” he added with a smirk.  
  
Jack huffed, getting to his feet. “It’s your funeral,” he said by way of warning.  
  
“Yeah, kinda.”

 

* * *

 

 

Jack-O-Lantern had led him a little ways across the countryside to a large, overgrown pumpkin patch in the yard of a church that had started to mingle with the graveyard. It would have all been a bit overwhelming had it not been for the countless lit turnips, gourds and pumpkins – all of which had faces carved out of them – and the vast number of spirits milling about.  
  
Some were quite obviously dressed up for the occasion, while others appeared to look the way they did naturally. Jack was almost positive he’d spotted Death himself lurking around the punch bowl. There were ghouls that seemed to be lesser spirits serving under Jack-O, who all stopped to cheer as their master arrived. Even Pitch Black was present.  
  
The whole place was just the kind of thing Jack had expected to find at a Halloween party, although he was fairly sure the skeleton decorations were real. He made a point of avoiding those.  
  
“So Jack,” Jack-O said, placing a casual arm over the winter spirit’s shoulders. “Why not lend us a hand with a bit of frost?”  
  
Jack raised an eyebrow in confusion and followed the Pumpkin King’s gaze over to where Ceres was talking animatedly with one of the Pixies that was responsible for the Will-O’-the-Wisp.   
  
“What did you have in mind?”

***

Jack knew he was probably going to regret this. Ceres already hated him enough as it was. Nevertheless, the prankster part of him couldn’t care less. And so they set the plan into motion.   
  
“How do you keep that flame alight without burning your hair?” Jack asked, gesturing to the Halloween spirit’s headgear while they waited for their target to move into position.   
  
Jack-O reached up and pulled the carved lantern off his head. Reaching inside, he pulled out a small flame that danced on the tips of his fingers without seeming to do any harm. “It’s Hell fire,” he explained and Jack automatically took a step back. Jack-O snickered but continued his explanation. “Before I became like this,” he gestured weakly towards himself. “I tricked the Devil into not taking my soul. In the end, when I died, I was left with nowhere left to go. The Devil gave me this flame to light the way.”  
  
“Wait, so you’re…”  
  
“Yup, cursed to forever wander the Earth as a soul rejected by both Heaven and Hell,” he finished dramatically.  
  
“How come I’ve never seen you around before?”  
  
Jack-O returned the flame to his pumpkin and placed it back on his head. “I only come out on Halloween.” He glanced down at the gourds lighting the area, their glow starting to fade. “Only a few minutes ‘til Samhain. It’s time to have some fun.”

 

* * *

  
  
Ceres was unsuspecting as she walked over to the table containing the party snacks. Jack waited until she was in just the right position before directing the wind to blow around her gently. The autumn spirit frowned, not having called upon her own wind and not knowing Jack was just across the clearing, hiding behind a particularly large pumpkin with her host.  
  
The wind did its job well, blowing out the flickering lights in the lanterns around her.  
  
Ready to turn it up a notch, Jack focused on the patch of frost by the plump woman’s feet. The frosted image of a hand slowly pulled up from the grass, gaining a more corporeal form. The hand reached up like a being of the dead climbing from its grave and latched on tightly to Ceres’s ankle.   
  
The autumn spirit screamed, knocking the table over in her panic and desperately kicking her leg out in an attempt to free herself. The hand dissipated in a puff of snowflakes as both Jacks rose from their hiding place, bursting with laughter.  
  
“Well what did you expect, coming to a Halloween party?” Jack-O grinned at her, but Ceres only had eyes for Jack Frost.  
  
“ _You_ ,” she ground out in nothing short of righteous fury.   
  
“Uh-oh,” Jack’s smile slipped as the wind swept him up into the air.   
  
“See you next year, Frosty?” Jack-O called up to him, still trying to catch his breath as he watched the winter spirit get chased by Ceres.


	6. Just Him and the Wind Part II

“Моидети!” North was the first to break the silence with his Russian curse.   
  
None of them had been expecting that. They were all still staring at the open patch of sand the winter spirit had occupied not moments before, as if expecting him to suddenly reappear before them.   
  
“Did you know?” North asked, turning to Tooth; she was the guardian of memories, after all.   
  
“No,” she replied, her voice no more than a whisper. “We protect the memories, but we never pry into them; it’s not our place to intrude on something so personal.”  
  
“We should go get ‘im,” Bunny declared, recovering from the shock of it all. “He’s been alone long enough.”

 

* * *

 

 

In the end, after much dispute, they had taken the sleigh. There was no arguing on where to look, however; there was one place Jack was sure to come back to time and again. Although, considering what he’d revealed to them, Bunny couldn’t help but wonder why.   
  
As they had predicted, they found Jack sitting on his staff (Bunny could never get over how easily the boy balanced on that stick) in the centre of the frozen lake, his hood drawn up over his head. Looking around, the clearing showed signs of spring everywhere. It was fair to assume, then, that the frozen water was Jack’s doing.   
  
They approached cautiously – there was every chance they could spook the kid off – but their efforts were wasted, as Jack didn’t even seem to notice they were there.  
  
“We should not scare him,” North whispered, glancing up at the solitary figure. “Sandy, send out dream sand to get his attention.”  
  
Sandy nodded, gathering his sand into his hands and moulding it into a stream which lazily made its way across the frozen surface, circling around Jack.   
  
Jack looked up at the delicate trail with wide eyes, but his expression softened when dolphins jumped up and danced around him. Slowly, he turned towards the bank and lowered his hood.  
  
“Hey, Sweet Tooth,” Tooth called softly. She hesitated on the edge for a minute before flying over to him.  
  
Jack effortlessly slid down from his staff, landing silently on the solid surface of the lake. “Hey.”  
  
“We’re sorry. We were just worried about you… you never told us, so we didn’t even think about the possibility…”  
  
“It’s okay,” Jack cut her off. “It wasn’t your fault.”  
  
“No,” Bunny stepped out to meet them. “I shouldn’t have forced you like that. You were excited about the idea back at the pole, so I didn’t see any harm in it. I’m sorry.”  
  
“Jack,” North and Sandy were the last to join the group. “We did not die when we became Guardians. But that is minor detail; you are still a Guardian, and you are still a part of our family. Look at us,” he waved a hand around in gesture. “We are all very different – but that doesn’t mean we do not belong. Could you imagine if there was more than one Bunny?”  
  
“Hey!”  
  
Jack looked away, a small smile on his face. North took that as a win and slapped a friendly hand on the winter spirit’s back, nearly sending him stumbling.  
  
“We won’t make you do anything you don’t want to,” Bunny added, apparently having recovered from North’s slight. “But if you ever need help with anything, or if you want to overcome your fear, then we’re here for you.”  
  
“Thanks, you guys,” Jack met their gazes – his family.   
  
Yes, he had been alone. Yes, he was now rather good at it. But, like the wind and the seasons, times change. He wasn’t alone anymore. It wasn’t just him and the wind, it was him, the wind and his family. And, judging from the way the wind blew gently around them, scattering petals and frost, he felt it safe to assume that it, like him, wouldn’t have it any other way.  
  
“I think this holiday was a bust,” Tooth said lightly.  
  
“Come, we go back to pole for hot chocolate,” he glanced at Jack, “Or cold chocolate, in your case, and cookies. Then we can decide on better idea for next holiday.” With an arm around the winter spirit’s shoulders, North and the other Guardians began leading him back to where they had left the sleigh.  
  
“I, uh, think I’ll meet you there,” Bunny announced, looking warily at the sleigh.   
  
“What’s wrong, Kangaroo?” Jack smirked. “You _scared_?”


	7. Blizzard of '68

Lleu was really starting to regret having sought out Jack Frost that day all those years ago. At first he’d seen no harm in it – yeah he was summer and Frost was winter, but so what? But then he’d actually found the kid and in only a matter of minutes it had been clear that his actions had been a mistake. Frost was practically melting after only being in his presence for a short time. It was a shame; Lleu thought he would have really liked the kid. But fate was cruel like that.   
  
So he’d left, thinking that would be the end of it. He’d been wrong.  
  
The second meeting of the two seasons that should never have mingled occurred the following year; an accident this time. Neither of them had been watching where they’d been flying and crashed into each other. Lleu had made one passing comment about Jack watching where he was going, else he hurt himself. He hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but from the look on Frost’s face, it had meant a lot to him. Lleu wasn’t ignorant – he knew the rumours about Jack Frost. How he was hated and ignored. How he was always alone. And, like their last encounter, Jack had started to show signs of fatigue and weakness after only a few short moments. He’d come up with an excuse to leave, trying hard to ignore the disappointment on the winter spirit’s face.  
  
Lleu had tried to avoid Jack Frost – much like the other spirits did. He knew summer and winter were not supposed to mix, regardless of how emotionally painful it was. Jack would feel hated and alone, and Lleu felt guilty for being the cause of that.  
  
But then Jack had sought him out.  
  
Lleu had found him flying through spring (looking very much like he was trying to avoid May), his forehead slick with perspiration. It was the middle of the season; the idiot should have been waiting it out at one of the poles! If this kept up, the kid was going to end up killing himself. Or, at least, make himself very, _very_ sick.  
  
And as much as it pained him, Lleu knew what he had to do. It was for Jack’s benefit, he kept reminding himself. But that didn’t make it any easier.  
  
“Look, Frost,” he snapped, trying to sound as hostile as possible whilst silently begging the winter spirit to see through his façade. “I don’t know what you thought was going on, but we’re _not friends_.” _Please, please don’t believe me!_ “You shouldn’t even be here! It’s spring, for crying out loud. You don’t belong here. So why don’t you run along to Antarctica like you’re supposed to?!”   
  
Lleu would never forgive himself for the hurt and disappointment that crossed Jack’s face. It was like he’d kicked a puppy or something. But just as quickly as it had come, the look was gone, covered by a hard, closed-off glare. _Good_ , the summer spirit told himself. _Now he won’t come back. It’s for his own good._  
  
“Sorry to have bothered you,” was the curt reply. Without another word, Jack took off, quickly disappearing behind the cloud cover.

 

* * *

 

 

 _How could I have been so stupid?!_  
  
Jack fought back the tears that were stinging his eyes. He would not let them show. He would not let Lleu see that he’d gotten to him. He should never have assumed that the summer spirit hadn’t hated him like the others. After all, he was Jack Frost – irresponsible, a nuisance, unneeded.   
  
As he flew, the emotion inside him began to boil; all the anguish and disappointment simmering down into rage. Rage at Lleu, but mostly anger at himself.   
  
He should have known better.  
  
And, with the anger, came power. He could feel his winter magic building up, banging against his walls, desperate for release. With a white-knuckled grip on his staff, Jack curled in on himself, his emotions and power all coming up in the form of a heart-wrenching cry. The ice billowed around him, swirling and building as the wind caught it and tumbled it around, as if sharing in his pain. In a matter of seconds, what had simply been a release of pent up emotion had become a full-blown blizzard.  
  
Jack watched in panic as the natural force he had created spread, covering the land below with wild snow fall. And he was powerless to stop it. Through the flurry of white, he thought he saw the silhouette of the Easter Bunny looking up at him.  
  
Oh.   
  
It was Easter Sunday.  
  
Jack forced himself to look away. “Wind,” he whispered. “Take me home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like it's worth noting that this isn't actually how I pictured '68 to have gone down. But in the end this kinda wrote itself.


	8. Of Elves and Staffs Part III

Pitch Black chuckled to himself as he walked slowly away from the decrepit building. Honestly, if they didn’t want to be scared, why did kids even bother with ‘tests of courage’? Not that he particularly minded; he enjoyed it.  
  
Without warning, a large portal appeared before him. Pitch took a large step back, his whole body anticipating fight or flight, but instead of a large oaf in a reindeer-pulled sleigh, all that appeared was a dull brown stick, which clattered loudly as it fell to his feet.   
  
“Well, well, well,” Pitch smirked, stooping to pick up the staff. “What have we here?”  
  
He ran the staff over in his hands, noting that there was no evidence of its earlier breakage. How had he done it? Wasn’t the staff the source of his powers? Then why had he been able to repair it, to come back, to play a significant role in his downfall?  
  
Pitch knew he now had leverage over Jack Frost… but how to use it…  
  
Pitch stepped back, allowing the shadows to consume him. In a matter of seconds, he had reappeared behind one of the Guardians; but not the one he was searching for.   
  
Suppressing a sigh, he called, “Tell me, Toothianna, where’s Jack?”  
  
The Tooth Fairy spun around so fast, for a moment Pitch thought her neck might just snap. No such luck. The small fairy by her side quickly moved behind her.  
  
“Pitch!” Tooth practically snarled. “What are you doing here?!”  
  
“Well, I was hoping you would answer my question,” he replied, rolling his eyes and waving the staff in front of him for emphasis.  
  
Tooth’s eyes widened at the sight of the stick, her gaze flickering constantly between it and the Boogieman. “Where did you get that?”  
  
“Oh this?” Pitch looked down at his new prop with mild interest, as if he hadn’t noticed he had it. “It was the funniest thing; it just landed in front of me. I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I said I only wanted to give it back…”  
  
If the glare was anything to go by, no she didn’t. “Well then,” she said, her tone obviously forced, “Give it to me and I’ll make sure Jack gets it.” Tooth held out her hand.  
  
“Oh no, no, no,” Pitch tutted. “I’d really rather give it to him in person. Where can I find him?”  
  
“I don’t know. And even if I did I wouldn’t tell you.”  
  
“Shame,” Pitch smirked, disappearing once more into the shadows.

 

* * *

 

 

Jack staggered back as something green zipped about in his face.  
  
“Whoa, whoa!” he gasped, putting up his hands in a placating manner.  
  
The green blur slowed, revealing itself to be Baby Tooth, who was squeaking and gesturing frantically.  
  
“Baby Tooth? What are you doing here?” Jack frowned, unable to understand what the anxious fairy was trying to tell him. “Slow down! I can’t–” he cut himself off as he caught sight of the rainbow coloured lights stretching across the sky.  
  
“Looks like Tooth’s found it,” Bunny said, hopping over.  
  
Jack couldn’t bring himself to smile. Why was Baby Tooth so flustered? “…Something’s wrong.”  
  
“Ah, here you are.”  
  
Jack could have recognised that velvety tone anywhere, and so he wasn’t surprised when he turned to see Pitch Black leaning casually against a tree. Nor was he all that shocked to see his staff resting on the Boogieman’s shoulder. Suddenly Baby Tooth was starting to make a lot of sense. If history was any indicator, this was _not_ going to end well.  
  
“Pitch!” Bunny growled.  
  
“Is this how you greet everyone who comes to see you?”  
  
“What do you want?” Jack asked, his tone dangerously calm.  
  
Pitch turned to him with a strange glint in his eyes. “I see you still remember our last little _heart-to-heart_ ,” he spat like it was poison on his lips.  
  
“I learned a lot that day; I guess I should thank you.”  
  
Pitch narrowed his eyes. It was clear that was not the response he had been looking for.   
  
“I’m only going to ask one more time: what do you want?”  
  
“I thought that was clear?”  
  
“How is stealing Jack’s staff going to make children believe in you?” North’s voice announced his arrival before the sleigh touched down on the forest floor. Sandy and Tooth climbed out alongside him.  
  
“It’s not the _staff_ that’s going to do it…” Pitch swung the staff lazily. “Do you remember, Jack? When I said ‘what goes together better than cold and dark’?”  
  
Jack lunged, a cry of rage escaping him. Pitch used the shadows, teleporting to another spot on the other side of the clearing.  
  
“Ah, I see you do remember…” He held the staff out towards the winter spirit. “So what do you say? I’ll give this back, if you do a little job for me.”  
  
“My answer hasn’t changed! You can do whatever you want, but you have no power over me!” It didn’t escape the Boogieman’s notice how Frost’s eyes flickered quickly over to his fellow Guardians and Baby Tooth, all of which, par the tiny fairy, were watching in confusion.  
  
“Is that so?” Pitch’s lip twitched. “Well in that case, you won’t mind if I do this.” On the last note, he held the staff in both hands and cracked it down over his knee.   
  
The snap reverberated around the clearing, but was quickly drowned out by the short cry of pain that escaped Jack Frost.  
  
Much like the first time, it was like the Boogieman had snapped away part of his soul, tearing it cruelly from its place, leaving a metaphorical hole in his chest.  
  
Pitch was smirking again, one of the halves held firmly in his hands. “Or this…” the half was snapped again, and this time Jack was not able to remain standing.  
  
Falling to his knees, Jack gripped the fabric of his jumper directly over his heart, the pain distorting the cries of his companions. He looked up at the shadow man, who was easily dodging the attacks launched at him.  
  
“One little word, Jack,” he taunted. “Just one little word and I’ll give it back.”  
  
“…No,” Jack gasped out.  
  
Pitch’s calm melted into anger. “Fine!” The remaining half was broken, and with it went another part of the winter spirit’s heart.  
  
 _Why does it hurt this much?!_ Jack placed a hand down onto the soft grass to steady himself. _It’s only a conduit! …It’s only… a conduit…_ Jack’s eyes widened, his expression quickly morphing into steely determination. With great effort, he pulled himself up onto his unsteady feet.  
  
“You have… no power over me!” The ground around his feet was starting to frost over, icy tendrils creeping out towards the source of their creator’s animosity.  
  
Almost comically, surprise overrode the smug look on Pitch’s face, but only momentarily, as black sand swam up, forming into two nightmares.

 _“What goes together better than cold and dark?”_  
  
Jack remembered exactly what had happened when cold and dark came together. And it didn’t work out so well for dark.   
  
He knew he was nowhere near as powerful without his staff – he didn’t have a conduit for nothing – but that didn’t make him powerless. All he had to do was get close enough… or let them get close to him.  
  
Jack hobbled forwards. Pitch was grinning like he’d already won, and pointed to the winter spirit. Without the need for words, one of the nightmares charged. But this was what Jack had been counting on.  
  
“Jack!” he heard his friends cry out in warning and silently willed them not to interfere. No such luck. In the corner of his eye he could see the others running towards him.  
  
“Sorry,” he managed, before sending ice cascading across the grass. Unable to gain a grip on the slippery surface, Bunny and North tumbled, taking Sandy and Tooth down with them. He was going to be in so much trouble later.  
  
At the last moment, with Pitch laughing victoriously in the background, Jack held up both his hands. The nightmare collided with him, and for a terse second, Jack wondered if he hadn’t made a mistake. But then he could feel the cold flurry of his powers seeping, spreading across the black sand. The nightmare was frozen solid in seconds.  
  
Pitch gave a cry of rage, and Jack turned his attention to the shadow man. Another nightmare rose to take the place of its fallen brethren and both it and the remaining one broke out into a sprint towards him.   
  
Jack crouched down, placing his hands flat onto the grass, using the earth like he would his staff and creating a line of pointed icicles. Unable to stop in time, the two nightmares impaled themselves, disintegrating into piles of dust.  
  
Now only Pitch remained.  
  
This was going to be harder than the nightmares. The other Guardians were starting to pick themselves up, all fiercely determined to stop Pitch.  
  
Pitch raised his hands as if to conjure more of his black sand creations but suddenly froze, his face telling tale to the utter shock he was experiencing. There was a loud rumble as two thick vines broke out of the ground and wound their way up his legs and torso.  
  
“What?” seemed to be the overall thought echoing around the clearing.  
  
“What in the name of Manny is going on here?!” an uncomfortably familiar – and angry – voice called. All present turned to the source in time to see a plump woman dressed in various shades of orange and brown come in to land on the edge of the clearing.  
  
“You,” she spat, pointing at Jack. “I thought I told you to be gone by the time I got back. Why are you still here?”  
  
“…Uh…” Perhaps he could use this to his advantage. “Him!” he gestured almost manically to Pitch. “It was his fault. He picked a fight with us.”  
  
Ceres raised a brow, glancing briefly at the other Guardians before turning her attention to Pitch. “Is that so?”  
  
Pitch visibly gulped.   
  
“Tell me, Pitch Black, why did you think it was okay to pick a fight with _him_ ,” she waved in the winter spirit’s direction, “knowing full well that his blasted ice would freeze up my season?”  
  
Pitch said nothing. Which was probably the best thing he could have done.   
  
“Leave. And if I _ever_ see you messing around with autumn again, you’ll regret it.”  
  
Pitch took her word for it, retreating into the shadows the moment the autumn spirit released him from the vines.  
  
“As for you…”  
  
Jack resisted the urge to swear colourfully.   
  
“You are on thin ice, boy. Now get lost before I change my mind.”  
  
Jack nodded mutely, hurrying (which in this case means hobbling at a rushed pace) to gather up the remains of his staff and clambering up into the sleigh. A rather dazed looking group of Guardians, who had sense enough not to comment on the last few minutes while in the presence of the intimidating woman, followed him.

 

* * *

 

 

Jack sighed, holding up two pieces of his staff and testing them to see if they were supposed to join together.  
  
“Sorry about your staff, Jack,” Tooth said forlornly watching curiously as Baby Tooth shook her head at the two pieces Jack was holding.  
  
“Don’t worry about it,” Jack shrugged, putting down one of the pieces and picking up another one.  
  
“Maybe we can fix?” North suggested, not taking his eyes off the sky ahead.  
  
“Doubt it would work the same,” Bunny said, sharing a look with Sandy.  
  
“No, it’s okay,” Jack shook his head. There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment. “Aha!”  
  
All occupants of the sleigh jumped at the sudden exclamation.  
  
“What?” North asked.  
  
Jack didn’t answer, simply furrowing his brow as he stared in complete concentration at his broken staff. Blue-white light erupted from the break, glowing to near blinding before dying down to reveal a single, undamaged stick. Jack smiled in satisfaction, moving on to the next piece, which Baby Tooth helpfully picked out for him.  
  
“Wha… How?” Bunny gaped.  
  
Jack spared the Pooka a second’s glance before focusing on the task at hand once more. “It’s not the first time I’ve had to do this,” he said by way of explanation.  
  
“What does that mean?” Tooth asked suspiciously.  
  
“Ah… it was a while ago… long story.”  
  
Sensing the uncomfortable atmosphere – there would be time to interrogate the kid later – Bunny brought up something that had been bothering him for a while. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Pitch so terrified.”  
  
Jack laughed, now only one piece away from completing the repairs. “I told you, Ceres is really scary when she’s mad.” He held up the fixed staff triumphantly and silently vowed to freeze every single elf he came across when they got back to the Pole. He was never letting his staff out of his sight _ever_ again.


	9. Low Batteries

_BEEP!_  
  
Jack sprung up in bed, instantly moving into a defensive position, wide eyes straining to survey the dark room.   
  
Silence.  
  
Jack ran a hand tiredly over his face, sinking back down into bed with a groan. He must have imagined it. His eyes were just closing, slipping back into the embrace of sleep.  
  
 _BEEP!_  
  
Now he knew he wasn’t imagining things. Jack stumbled out of bed and across the room where the light switch was. After the initial blinding was over, he searched the room, but there was no sign of anything that would make such an obtrusive noise. In fact, the guest room was bare save for the bed, side table and wardrobe.   
  
_BEEP!_  
  
“What the heck _is_ that?” Jack asked nobody in particular. His eyes roved the room, landing on a small round device on the ceiling flashing a red light every few seconds.  
  
Confused, the winter spirit grabbed his staff and drifted up until he could get a proper look.  
  
 _BEEP!_  
  
He nearly fell in shock from the sudden sound. He had no doubt now that it was coming from the strange device. With a frown, he used his free hand to grab onto it and tugged but the strange plastic thing didn’t budge.  
  
Jack hmphed. He squinted, noticing small words written around the edge. “Twist… to… release,” he read. With a shrug, he did as was instructed, pleased at how easily the device came free. It was utterly unremarkable, and he had no idea how – or why – it had suddenly started beeping. Figuring now it was disconnected it would stop, Jack placed it down gently on the side table and went to turn off the light.  
  
His body eagerly welcomed the prospect of sleep.  
  
 _BEEP!_  
  
Jack sprang upright for the third time that night. Why was it still beeping?! With a frustrated sigh, he slid out of bed and turned the light back on. Grabbing the device none too gently, he looked it over, trying to find some sort of off switch.   
  
The back of the device sported some kind of compartment, and with a small amount of prodding he managed to get it open. A small rectangular thing sat inside. _Oooh, a battery_. In hindsight, he probably should have realised. A small flick was all it took to remove the battery and he placed both it and the circular thing back on the table.  
  
Maybe now he could _finally_ get some sleep.  
  
 _BEEP!_  
  
“What?! WHY ARE YOU STILL BEEPING?!” Jack practically screamed. Snatching up his staff, he aimed it at the detestable device and froze it solid. “Let’s see you beep now.”  
  
A small, sad red light flickered under the layer of frost and Jack narrowed his eyes. But the silence remained undisturbed.   
  
“That’s what I thought,” he smirked in satisfaction.  
  
 _BEEP!_  
  
“THAT’S IT!!!” Jack threw the device on the ground, more than prepared to smash it to oblivion.  
  
“Jack? What is–” North stopped dead in his tracks at the sight that greeted him.   
  
The winter spirit had his foot raised over some sort of frozen _thing_ , his hair unruly and a manic glint in his eyes.   
  
_BEEP!_  
  
Jack seemed to writhe with rage, looking back down at the device with a snarl.   
  
“No, Jack, wait!” North held his arms placatingly and Jack paused again. Almost hesitantly, the Cossack walked into the room and picked the device off the ground. It was a struggle to hold in the laugh that threatened to escape. “Jack, why did you freeze smoke detector?”  
  
“Smoke detector?”  
  
“Ya; if there is a fire, it detects the smoke and sounds an alarm.”  
  
“…” Jack gazed around the room. “There’s no fire.”  
  
“I can see that.”  
  
“Then why is it beeping?!”  
  
North smiled. “Is low battery alarm,” he explained. “I will take and put new batteries in for you.”  
  
North shook his head with a light smile as he left the room, frozen smoke detector in hand. The poor kid looked so bedraggled. He would be sure to wait until morning before returning the detector.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based loosely off personal experience. Naturally, of course, while it took me a while to realise it was the detector that was beeping (I thought it was an annoying bird ^^;) I do know what it means :P


	10. The Way the Cold Burns Part I

Just as it was beautiful, so could winter be deadly. The woman huddled in the corner of the alleyway was testimony to that. She wrapped the tattered blanket more closely around herself and the two children huddled up against her, dislodging some of the snow that had begun to settle on them. The blizzard, in its ignorance, continued to rain snow down upon them.  
  
It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that the cold had snatched away life, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. But that didn’t make it any easier. It was night, and Jack had thought that everyone would have been inside by now, figuring it to be the perfect time to start the blizzard. But he had forgotten that not everybody had a home to go back to.  
  
It was his fault. And now these people were going to die because of a small detail he’d overlooked.  
  
 _…Jack._  
  
But what could he do? How could he fix this? It was like what he’d told Baby Tooth in Antarctica: he only knew how to make people cold.  
  
The alley was now sufficiently covered in snow, and where the white flakes hadn’t settled, the ground had frozen instead. If this kept up, the three in the corner weren’t going to see midnight.  
  
He had to do something. If only he were like May or Lleu – able to melt the snow…  
  
An idea struck him. He knew from the outset it wasn’t going to be a good idea, but that wasn’t going to stop him.  
  
 _Can you hear me?_

 _…_  
  
His staff grasped firmly in his hands, Jack flew up through the dark clouds, not stopping until he was in the heart of the storm. It was too large to simply blow away – and even if he did, the three in the alley were unlikely to be the only homeless in the city.  
  
The wind that usually aided him was buffeting him around, preventing him from concentrating. It was trying to stop him, he knew, but this was the right thing to do. The time for fun and games had passed. Now he needed to be responsible.  
  
 _…Fever…too high…  
  
_ Closing his eyes, Jack ignored the way his life-long friend was pushing him around, concentrating solely on the storm surrounding him. He could feel it, the cold that he had created. So maybe he could _un_ create it.  
  
He almost faltered when the pain struck – he was never meant to destroy the cold – but he wasn’t going to give up. As the blizzard started to subside, Jack could feel a deep burning in his chest, like his core, his very soul, was on fire.  
  
When the snowfall around him had dissipated into little more than a light sprinkling of powder, Jack allowed the wind to carry him gently back to the ground, resolutely ignoring the way he stumbled upon landing.  
  
The woman and her children, oblivious to his presence, were staring up at the sky in amazement. Jack felt a small smirk work its way onto his face. He wasn’t done yet. Setting himself down on his knees, he wiped the perspiration off his forehead with the sleeve of his jumper before placing both hands flat onto the nearest snow pile.  
  
“Don’t worry,” he told them, ignoring how weak his voice had become. “I’ll fix this… you’ll be okay…”  
  
This was a _terrible_ idea. It was one thing to settle a storm, but to actually _melt_ the snow?! He waited a moment to catch his breath, frowning as the wind pushed against him in warning and concern.  
  
 _Get more snow!_  
  
He couldn’t believe his eyes. The snow was actually melting! He didn’t think he was actually capable of doing it! For once in his life he was glad to have been proven wrong. He hadn’t been wrong about it being a terrible idea, though, if the nausea that was overcoming him was anything to go by. He was too hot. His stomach protested, threatening to return everything he’d eaten earlier. But Jack ignored it, not stopping until the alley was completely free of snow and ice.  
  
His head felt like it was underwater. His vision was blurred and sound muffled, yet somehow he was still able to spot the man hurrying down the other side of the street; likely someone who was taking the break in the weather as an opportunity to get home.  
  
Maybe he could get the man to help…  
  
Getting to his feet with much more difficulty than he would have liked, Jack formed a snowball in the palm of his hand. Well, it was supposed to be a snowball, but it looked rather more like a pile of slosh. That was concerning.  
  
Pulling back his arm, he took aim and threw the snowball with as much strength as he could muster.  
  
It missed its mark. The snowball – or what was left of it – landed with a splat a good few metres from the man, and Jack bit back the colourful curse that threatened to escape him. He didn’t think he had it in him to try again. But the man had seen, and was looking confusedly down into the dark depths of the alley.  
  
After a moment of hesitation, the man crossed the road, stopping at the mouth of the alley.  
  
“H-Hello?” he called uncertainly.  
  
“P-please,” Jack gasped, despite knowing full well that the man wouldn’t hear him. “Help them.”  
  
A small squeak of fear from the smaller child alerted the man to their presence. “It’s alright,” he said calmly, holding his hands up in front of him. “I won’t hurt you.”  
  
The woman hugged her children closer to her, her eyes wide with fear.  
  
“You all must be freezing,” the man continued. “Why don’t you come on home with me? My wife makes a mean casserole, and she always makes more than the two of us can eat.”  
  
Jack waited with baited breath, not allowing himself to breathe again until the woman seemed to deem the man safe enough, allowing him to pull her to her feet.  
  
They would be alright now.  
  
With a tired smile, Jack allowed the wind to lift him up off the ground, the sudden motion very nearly costing him his lunch. His mind blinked in and out of consciousness as his world spun.  
  
 _Hand me wet cloth.  
  
…be okay?  
  
…Jack...? …burning…  
  
_ He was vaguely aware of travelling northwards – the wind seemed to be trying to take him back to the Pole. A blast of hot air. The Northern Hemisphere was in the middle of summer right now…This time he really was sick.  
  
The air seemed to die beneath him.  
  
He was falling… Didn’t even have the energy to scream…  
  
Darkness…  
  
Sound was the first thing to return to him. What had been little snippets of half-heard phrases slowly began to form sentences… and not long after that he’d been able to understand what was being said around him.  
  
“We need more snow!”  
  
“It shouldn’t be melting this fast!”  
  
He recognised the voices, but their owners escaped him. Where was he? What had he been doing? He was starting to regain feeling and instantly wished he wasn’t. He was hot. _Way_ too hot. And his stomach was churning like he’d drunk curdled milk. His muscles felt heavy and refused to budge, even at his urging. The dull ache in the back of his skull quickly grew into a full-fledged migraine and he suddenly wished he could just pass out again.  
  
“Body temperature is at 30°*.”  
  
“We need to get some fluids into ‘im.”  
  
As more and more feeling returned to him, it became increasingly hard to breathe. He gasped, desperately trying to take deep breaths but he just couldn’t get enough air.  
  
“Calm down, Frostbite. Take deep breaths. Come on!”  
  
 _I’m trying_ , Jack wanted to snap back but he didn’t have the strength. So, he did the only thing he could do. With great struggle, he managed to open his eyes a fraction and glared at an almost panicked Pooka standing over him. That wasn’t what he’d expected. The glare lost its bite and he settled on trying to figure out what was going on.  
  
Bunny had grabbed his hand and placed against his chest, saying something about breathing and copying but it was going straight over Jack’s head. He noted the other Guardians were there, too. North seemed to be ordering yetis about, something about buckets… Tooth didn’t seem able to stay still for more than a moment, looking anxious and not sure what to do with herself. Sandy was creating symbols above his head but it didn’t seem like anyone else had noticed.  
  
A furry paw grabbed his face, turning it to the side and Jack found himself staring straight up at Bunny, who could have been either annoyed or worried. It was hard to tell.  
  
“I need you to listen to me, Jack, alright?”  
  
Why was he in a bathtub? His jumper seemed to have wandered off somewhere, along with his staff. A strange image of his staff wearing his jumper came to mind and he could feel a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Man, it was really starting to get hard to breathe.  
  
“Jack!”  
  
His face was wrenched back towards Bunny; he hadn’t even noticed he’d looked away.  
  
“Nod if you can hear me,” the Pooka instructed.  
  
It took a lot of effort, but Jack managed to do what Bunny asked.  
  
“Okay, I need you to calm down and breathe with me, alrigh’? Slow, deep breaths. In and out.”  
  
When had his hand gotten onto Bunny’s chest? He felt like he was supposed to be doing something but the headache was making it hard to think and he couldn’t breathe.  
  
“Jack, breathe! Come on, mate.”  
  
Breathe? No… all he wanted to do was sleep. He shut his eyes, intent on doing just that but a harsh jolt shocked his eyes open again.  
  
“Tired,” he tried to say, but it came out as more of a half-groaned ‘t’d’.  
  
“I know, mate, but you can’t go to sleep. On the count of three, I want you to take a deep breath, okay? One, two, three.”  
  
Why was he in a bathtub? And where had his jumper and staff gone?  
  
“Jack!” Bunny said, and it was clear from his tone that he was starting to get frustrated.  
  
“Wh’t?”  
  
“You were supposed to breathe with me!”  
  
Oh. He’d forgotten. As if to make up for it, Jack made a show of attempting to take a deep breath, but ended up just starting a coughing fit. He felt like his insides were fighting to climb out through his throat and he retched. Someone had moved him slightly onto his side.  
  
Why was he in a bathtub?  
  
A bucket of snow was unceremoniously dumped onto his chest. He suddenly realised how hot he was. Why was he so hot? Bunny was saying something again… breathe? Oh, yeah, that was important.  
  
“Here, Sweet Tooth,” it was Tooth this time. She’d pushed Bunny out of the way and was holding a glass of water out towards him. When it became clear that he wasn’t going to be able to take it from her, she pressed the rim of the glass to his lips and gently tilted it. “Not too fast, Jack, or you’ll end up bringing it back up again.”  
  
It was hard to restrain himself; the water was like it had been sent from the MiM himself. Or maybe he was really just that thirsty. Either one.  
  
“Now, Sweet Tooth, you really need to calm down and breathe for us, okay? Like this,” she took an exaggeratedly deep breath, gently lifting his hand to her chest. “Follow my rhythm. Breathe with me.”  
  
But the darkness was starting to creep around the edges of his vision and he could barely make out what she was saying. Then all at once the world blackened and he knew no more.

 

* * *

 

 

Tooth ran a tired hand down her face as she flew into the Globe Room, mug of hot chocolate in hand. Jack wasn’t much better than he had been when he’d arrived, and they still weren’t entirely sure how he’d ended up in that state. They kept piling bucketful after bucketful of snow onto him but it melted far too quickly than it should considering Jack’s position as the spirit of winter. Nothing they did would lower his dangerously high temperature.  
  
They’d all been surprised when he’d woken; with a fever like that, they’d expected him to be unconscious for days. And then he’d started hyperventilating and Bunny had panicked and –

Tooth stopped and forced herself to calm down. There was no sense freaking out over it or she’d be of no help whatsoever. Besides, Jack wasn’t their only patient.  
  
The figure huddled under the blanket by the fireplace looked up as she flew over to him. She’d never met the spirit in person, but she knew who he was.  
  
“How are you feeling?” she asked, handing him the mug.  
  
“Slightly less frozen,” he grinned at her, accepting the drink. “Thanks.”  
  
“We haven’t been properly introduced, have we?” Tooth settled herself on the floor beside him. Her hands were numb from all the snow. “I’m Tooth.”  
  
“I know who you are,” he took a sip of the drink. “I doubt there are any who don’t. Although you probably already know, I’m Lleu.”  
  
They lapsed into silence.  
  
“How is he?” Lleu asked after a moment.  
  
“There’s not much difference,” Tooth sighed. “He woke up for a few minutes, but I’m not sure how aware he was. What happened?”  
  
“To be honest, I’m not sure. One minute I was enjoying the afternoon, the next I was stopping Frost from falling out of the sky. I think he was trying to get back here, but flying through the middle of summer in his condition really wasn’t a smart plan.”  
  
Tooth frowned, fiddling with her feathers. “Thank you for bringing him here. It must have been hard for you, too.”  
  
“Nah, a little snow never bothered me,” Lleu shrugged airily.  
  
Tooth raised her brow sceptically. “I find that hard to believe. You were practically frozen when Phil found you!”  
  
“Well, I was nowhere near as bad as Jack. And, right now, he’s what’s important.”

 

* * *

 

 

Bunny’s brows were knitted together in concern as he poured yet another bucket of snow over the flushed figure of Jack Frost. On a normal day, it wouldn’t have melted at all, so for it to be melting so quickly was a really bad sign.  
  
He’d been ready to pound the summer spirit when Phil had dragged him into the Globe Room, an unconscious and clearly ill Jack in his arms. Lleu had been pale as a ghost, muttering about burns, and being sorry, and not knowing what happened. North had quickly ushered the kid over to the fireplace, exclaiming at how cold he was. But Lleu had nothing on Jack. Where Lleu had been frozen, Jack was practically melting.  
  
Probably still would if they didn’t figure out how to bring his fever down.  
  
“Bunny, you should go get rest. I will take over.”  
  
Bunny looked up at North and shook his head. “Nah, mate. I think I’ll stay ‘ere.”  
  
“You won’t do Jack any good by wearing yourself out.”  
  
“Even so,” Bunny grabbed the cloth off Jack’s forehead and rinsed it in a bucket of ice water before replacing it.  
  
“Lleu is alright,” Tooth announced as she fluttered back into the bathroom. “He’s still a bit cold but a night by the fireplace should fix it.”  
  
“Well, that’s some good news at least,” North sighed.  
  
“Bunny, you look exhausted,” Tooth placed a delicate hand on his shoulder.  
  
“I ain’t leaving,” Bunny said stubbornly.  
  
“Do you want me to make up a bed for you in here so you don’t have to?”  
  
Bunny raised his head to meet her gaze. From the look on her face, it seemed she understood. “It’s alright.”  
  
“Alright, but I want you to get some sleep soon, or I’ll have Sandy knock you out.”  
  
At the mention of his name, Sandy smirked maliciously, pounding a ball of dream sand into his hand threateningly.  
  
“I will… just not yet,” Bunny turned back to Jack and rechecked his temperature. Still no change.  
  
“There’s got to be something more we can do,” North murmured.  
  
“If we could figure out what happened, we might get a better idea of what to do, but Lleu doesn’t know. He said he was already in a bad way when he found him,” Tooth replied worriedly. “We’ve already done everything we can. Now it’s up to Jack.”

 

* * *

 

 

The world was silent when Jack awoke the second time. Feeling had yet to return, but, he mused, that was probably a good thing. It took far more effort than it should have to force his eyes open and when he did, he instantly closed them again as the sudden light blinded him.  
  
After waiting a moment, he tried again, happy to note that it wasn’t quite as painful as before. He was lying in a bathtub, his whole body save his head covered in mostly melted snow. His jumper was missing, as was his staff, but at that moment he was too tired to care.  
  
There was something sitting in his peripheral vision. Curious, he tilted his head but instantly regretted it. That one small action set off all the other pains and aches of his body and he had to shut his eyes until the room stopped spinning. His head was pounding and he was dizzy and his whole body felt like it was on fire.  
  
Why was he so hot?  
  
And then the events of his last waking moments returned to him.  
  
He had done something stupid. He’d melted snow. But he didn’t regret it. He’d never regret it. If he hadn’t done it, that family would have died. It had been his fault, and therefore his responsibility to fix it. He could remember flying north, trying to get back to the Pole but not much more than that. How had he ended up in a bathtub covered in snow?  
  
As the world righted itself once more, Jack very slowly shifted until he could see what was sitting to his side. It was Bunny.  
  
The Pooka had his head resting on his arms while he leant against the edge of the bath, fast asleep. The sight brought a small smile to his face. So he’d managed to get back to the Pole, after all.  
  
He could feel the water soaking into his shirt and pants, but it was doing nothing to douse the burning feeling that had overcome him. He was too hot. He felt like he was melting. He had to get up, had to get somewhere cold. The snow-banks outside would work.  
  
Jack concentrated on moving his arms, alarmed at how weak his muscles were. After what felt like hours, he managed to manoeuvre them into position and tried to push himself into a sitting position. The slight inclination of his head was enough to set off the nausea and he had to stop before he threw up.  
  
It took minutes before he felt like he could try again – slower this time. With a great struggle, he managed it, gripping the edge of the bath for support. As time dragged on his body grew steadily hotter, and along with temperature, his desperation to get out grew.  
  
It took considerably longer to haul himself out of the bath than it had to sit up. He had to keep stopping every few seconds from exhaustion and pain. He was almost on his feet before a painful tug on his arm made him stop. He glanced down at the twinging appendage, only to find, to his horror, some kind of tubbed needle sticking out of it.  
  
Jack followed the tube with his eyes until they rested on some sort of pack filled with a clear liquid hanging on a metal hook. With his mouth open and eyes wide, he yanked the needle from his arm, biting back a cry as it drew blood. What were they thinking?! Jabbing things into him! A small voice in the back of his mind told him it was probably important and that maybe he shouldn’t have been so hasty in removing it, but he smothered that voice down and focused on getting over to the door.  
  
Every so often he would look back at Bunny to make sure the Pooka was still asleep; he had a feeling the overgrown rabbit would not agree with him on the matter. But he _really_ needed to get outside. It was too hot and no bathtub of snow was going to be able to cool him down. He needed a storm.  
  
He almost laughed at the irony of it all. A storm was what had caused this mess and now he needed one to fix it.  
  
Walking turned out to be a little too much to ask for. Jack fell to his knees after the first step and the wall was too far away to lean on. So, with no other options available, he began a slow crawl across the bathroom floor, pulling himself back up to his feet upon reaching the doorframe.  
  
He had to stand there for a moment, his head resting on the wood, to catch his breath. Once he felt sure he could start moving again without collapsing, he headed down the hall, the wall taking most of his weight.  
  
The trip to the outside was remarkably quiet – only his laboured breathing and heavy footsteps breaking the silence. It was night time, apparently; that was the only explanation he could come up with. Eventually, he just couldn’t keep going. He wasn’t even close to the front door. Or any door that led outside.  
  
Jack pressed his back against the wall and slid down, his head lolled backwards. His whole body was slick with sweat and he was sure he’d be nothing more than a puddle of water on the wooden floor by the time anyone found him. His eyelids grew heavy and he gave in to the exhaustion.  
  
The sound of rattling glass brought him back to consciousness with a jolt. He looked around, but there was nothing nearby that looked as though it could have made such a sound.  
  
Another rattle; it was coming from above.  
  
Jack slowly raised his head and stared at the wall above him. He could have wept for joy. There was a window right there, the wind pushing violently against it.  
  
With renewed determination, Jack gathered the last of his strength and staggered to his feet. The window was just out of reach. If he had his staff, he would have gotten to it no problem, but as it was, he would have to jump. But it was shut. How was he going to open it?  
  
A tiny jingling sound made him freeze in place. Hesitantly, Jack turned to face a rather stunned looking elf. They stared each other down for a while, each just as shocked as the other before the elf seemed to recover from its stupor, panic overruling shock as it turned and hurried the other way down the hallway – likely to go and fetch North.  
  
“W… wait,” he rasped. “Dingle!”  
  
He’d called the name on instinct – honestly he wasn’t sure which elf it was – and he only knew the names of two, but the elf stopped. Almost comically in its slowness, the elf looked back over its shoulder towards him.  
  
 _Huh. I guess it was Dingle_. “I… I need your help.”  
  
The elf glanced from him, down the hallway and back again. “You can… go get North later…”  
  
Dingle was still undecided and Jack could have growled in frustration.  
  
“Come on… You owe me!”  
  
That did it. Dingle gave a heavy sigh and waddled back over to him. He looked up with an expression of resignation.  
  
Jack leant down and picked the small elf up – much to Dingle’s protest – and, with much effort, held him up towards the window. “I need you… to open it. Don’t look at me like that… just do it!”  
  
Dingle sighed again, but did as he was instructed. As soon as it was open, the wind burst into the hall, freezing the sweat on Jack’s body as it wrapped itself around him.  
  
With that done, Jack plopped the elf back on the ground and jumped, only just managing to grab the window ledge. He dangled there for a moment, trying to find the strength to pull himself up. Dingle remained where he was, watching with something akin to concern. Or maybe it was confusion. Regret? He really didn’t know anymore. His head was pounding and he couldn’t think straight.  
  
Dingle seemed to come to a decision and bolted, disappearing down the end of the hallway.  
  
Jack took a deep breath and pulled. His arms burned with the effort and it took no less than four tries before he was able to climb up onto the window frame. He stuck his head out the window and looked down. He was on the second floor, at least, but there was a lot of snow piled below. In the end, his want for the cold outside overcame common sense and he dove out, landing face down into the powder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally supposed to be a one-shot but it grew too long, so I decided to separate it. It is also a request from sakura-blossoms-26 (over on FFN) who asked for: "So, I was thinking something weird happens and Jack becomes like super mundo mega sick. Like, grit your teeth sick." (I love that description XD)
> 
> *Celsius. I'm Australian. I can't give you the Fahrenheit number off the top of my head ^^; Sorry


	11. The Way the Cold Burns Part II

Bunny was in a state of sheer and utter panic. Not only had he fallen asleep while he was supposed to be taking care of Jack, but when he’d finally woken up it was only to find an empty bathtub filled with water – only a few chunks of snow still intact.   
  
And Jack was nowhere in sight.   
  
The kid had been unconscious for days; his condition never getting any better. Why did he have to wake up the one time Bunny fell asleep?! No. There was no point grumbling about it now. He needed to find Jack before the kid made himself any worse.  
  
Bunny made to run out of the room but stopped when his foot stepped in something wet. Looking down, he noticed the trail of water splashed across the floor leading out into the hallway. At least Frost would be easy to track.  
  
Bunny got down on all fours and bolted, but he didn’t even make it out the door before he collided with something solid and was pushed back, landing heavily in a heap on the floor.   
  
“Oh, sorry, Bunny!” North reached down and pulled the Pooka back up to his feet. The Cossack’s eyes widened when he caught sight of the empty bathtub. “So is true,” he whispered.  
  
“What’s true?”  
  
“Dingle,” North said distractedly. “He woke me up – said Jack jumped out window.”  
  
“What?! Then why are we still standing around here?!” Bunny forced his way past the Cossack and followed the watery trail. Why Jack had run off he couldn’t possibly fathom, but they needed to find him. Fast.   
  
“Bunny? What’s–”  
  
Bunny ignored Tooth, keeping on Frost’s trail. He wasn’t surprised when she followed after him.   
  
The water was starting to disperse – in some places completely gone, until it finally disappeared altogether. Bunny came to a halt, looking down both ways of the split hallway indecisively. He sniffed the air, but there was no trace of Jack’s scent nearby.   
  
“Now what?!” he groaned, pushing his ears back with a paw.   
  
“What’s going on? Bunny?” Tooth asked, flustered.  
  
Sandy hurried around the corner on a cloud of dream sand, gesturing behind him frantically, symbols flashing above his head.  
  
“Sandy, what is it?” Tooth tried to decipher the symbols.  
  
A snowflake. An open window. Another snowflake.  
  
“Show me!” Bunny ordered, understanding.  
  
Sandy nodded and hurried away, not bothering to check if his fellow Guardians were following.   
  
The hallway was filled with snow – that was the first thing Bunny noticed. The window was open, allowing more snow and the howling wind to enter. The Pooka had no doubt this was how Jack had gotten out.  
  
Bunny wasted no time, jumping up and sticking his head out the window, looking down at the piles of snow below. He searched frantically, unable to find the winter spirit amongst the torrent of wind and never-ending white.  
  
A howl, almost inhuman jerked his eyes further away from the base of the building. And then he spotted him. Jack was staggering, barely able to keep himself upright. His face was tilted up towards the sky, his arms out wide. And he was _screaming._

 

* * *

 

 

Jack forced his eyes open. He’d allowed his exhaustion to take control but now he needed to fix things before they got worse. The freezing snow and the added chill of the wind had helped cool him down, but there was still a long way to go before he would be ‘better’.  
  
It was much easier this time to get to his feet, but his limbs still shook with exertion, sweat beading on his brow. He staggered away from the workshop. If he was going to try and make a storm, he didn’t want it to be anywhere near North’s home – especially since he would have next to no control over it.  
  
And then it hit him. How was he going to make a storm without his staff? He would have slapped himself if he had the energy. Well, he’d shown he was still strong without it against Pitch in that whole staff-stealing incident, so he’d just have to make do.  
  
When he felt he honestly couldn’t walk another step he looked back over his shoulder towards the workshop. He was disappointed to find he hadn’t really gone all that far. Maybe it would just be a small storm… That was probably wishful thinking.  
  
Jack closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He focused on the wind wrapping around him, trying to communicate to it what he wanted it to do. But it didn’t understand – continuing to do what it had been, wrapping around him protectively and trying to cool his raging fever. Furrowing his brow in growing frustration, Jack threw his arms out wide, pulled back his head and _screamed_.   
  
He cried out all his frustration, channelling his emotions into the snow around him, willing it to whirl up – to create the blizzard he so desperately required. He tried to focus on the heat resonating in his core; to channel it out through his arms. The wind started to rile up, spinning around him, lifting the snow off the ground and forcing the clouds to gather above him. It was working!  
  
Something grabbed him and he faltered. With panicked eyes, Jack turned to see Bunny shouting at him, but the words were lost, swept away by the wind. The Pooka was dragging him, trying to take him back towards the workshop.  
  
“No!” he gasped, his breathing laboured as if he’d just run a marathon.   
  
“Jack, you’re gonna make yerself worse!” Bunny fought the wind, trying to get a better grip on the winter spirit.  
  
“…Storm! Have to… make storm… Need to… let it… go.”  
  
“You can make all the storms you want once you’re better!”  
  
“No…!” Why didn’t he understand? Why couldn’t he see that the storm would make him better? His core was too hot; he needed to release the heat.  
  
But he was weak, barely able to keep himself upright let alone fight against Bunny. All the energy he’d recovered in the snow-bank and the adrenalin left him, his body sagging in the Pooka’s arms. The wind attempted to rescue its beloved winter spirit, but it was all in vain.  
  
“No,” he whispered brokenly. The wind and snow fell to nothingness as his world went black.

 

* * *

 

 

Bunny was barely able to catch Jack as he slumped lifelessly in the Pooka’s arms. Alarmed, the Guardian of Hope quickly pressed a digit against the kid’s neck, relieved to find a pulse beating beneath the surface.   
  
“What the hell was he thinking?!” Bunny fumed, feeling like he had the right to be angry now that he knew Jack was just unconscious.  
  
“Is he okay?” Tooth asked as she and Sandy hurried over to his side.  
  
“Why would he try and make a blizzard in his condition?!” Bunny continued, ignoring her.  
  
Sandy frowned, a few symbols appearing above him, but the two didn’t seem to understand. The Sandman huffed in frustration and tried again. A sad face; a storm; a happy face. But from the blank looks he received, he assumed they still had no idea. Sandy slapped his forehead in exasperation. Sometimes he really wished he could just talk.   
  
“Should we get him back inside?” Tooth wrung her hands together, suppressing a shiver as a blast of icy wind buffeted them.   
  
“Is everything okay?!”  
  
The three turned to see North standing in the workshop doorway, waving to get their attention. He was still just within earshot – Jack hadn’t been able to travel too far. A part of Bunny wondered what would have happened if the kid had had his staff with him. They might not have found him at all.  
  
“Come on,” Bunny muttered, readjusting the winter spirit in his arms as he led the way back to the workshop.  
  
“What happened?” North asked once they had been ushered inside.  
  
“He tried to create a blizzard,” Tooth explained. “Although why, I don’t know.”  
  
“A blizzard?” North ‘hmm’d, tapping his chin. “I will have yetis bring up more snow.”  
  
Bunny nodded and headed off in the direction of the bathroom.  


 

* * *

 

“Bunny, look!” Tooth shoved the thermometer into the Pooka’s face. “His temperature has gone down; it’s 28°C!”  
  
“What?” Bunny snatched the small device from her, confirming it for his own eyes. “Surely after that little stunt it would go up, not down?”  
  
“The numbers don’t lie,” she replied, preparing a new IV needle. “Check again, if you don’t believe me.”  
  
Bunny complied, slipping the end into the unconscious Jack’s mouth. He waited a moment, watching the red liquid as if it had personally offended him. He was not pleased with the result. “30°; he’s gone back up.”  
  
“What do we do? Nothing we’ve done has brought the fever down at all!”  
  
Sandy waved his arms around to grab their attention, a sand storm raging above him.   
  
“What do you mean, Sandy?” Tooth frowned. “You think the storm helped?”  
  
“Nah, mate,” Bunny placed the thermometer down on the sink. “You saw how weak he was after that.”  
  
“Well, maybe it’s not the storm itself but the cold?”  
  
“We’ve already piled him up with snow,” Bunny sighed in defeat. “If we take him outside we won’t be able to treat him properly. Unlike him, we can’t handle being out in the cold like that for too long.”  
  
They lapsed into silence, avoiding each other’s eyes. They were running out of ideas. And if they didn’t figure out a way to lower Jack’s temperature, it could do lasting damage.

 

* * *

 

 

It had been a week. A week since Lleu had shown up, weak and desperate, with an unconscious Jack Frost in arm. Jack had woken up only twice in that time – the first time only for a few moments and the second long enough to slip out undetected and give them all a real scare. His temperature had only risen as the hours turned to days, now sitting on 31°C. He was constantly flushed, his skin moist with perspiration. The snow they continuously poured over him seemed to be doing nothing. They’d even tried taking him outside and laying him in a snow bank but even that had proven futile.   
  
Jack’s condition was only worsening and none of them had any idea how to stop it.  
  
“Lleu?” Tooth looked up from where she was wiping Jack’s forehead with a damp cloth.   
  
The summer spirit stood awkwardly in the doorway, concern evident on his face as he gazed at his opposite.  
  
“I didn’t know you were still here,” she offered a tired smile but it wasn’t returned.  
  
“How is he?” Lleu asked, finally stepping over to her side, but careful to keep his distance from Jack.  
  
“His temperature rose another half degree this morning. Other than that, there’s been no change.” Silence returned and Tooth resumed her pointless task. “What do you do… what do you normally do when you get too cold?”  
  
“Me?” Lleu looked up at her. “It doesn’t happen very often; bringing him here was probably the worst it’s ever been. I just stuck by the fireplace and kept as warm as possible until I felt better.” He turned back to Jack. “But something tells me that there’s something more going on here.”  
  
“What do you mean?” Tooth raised her head, startled by the sudden insight.   
  
“Well, if it were merely a case of being too hot, then leaving him outside in the snow should have been enough, but it didn’t fix anything,” Lleu shrugged. “When I found him, he wasn’t far into summer – nowhere near far enough to have gotten into the condition he was in. So I can’t help but wonder what happened to start all this; I mean, surely nothing in winter could do this. It’s almost like he–” Lleu trailed off abruptly, his eyes widening.  
  
“What?” Tooth asked, her own eyes widening at the utter horror on the seasonal spirit’s face.   
  
“No… he couldn’t have… he _wouldn’t_ …”  
  
“Wouldn’t what?”  
  
Lleu shook his head, bolting from the room. Tooth called after him, but to no avail. She hovered for a moment, torn between chasing him and staying with Jack. She flew over to the doorway and stuck her head out, scanning the hall.  
  
“Phil!”  
  
The yeti turned, confusion crossing his features at her panic.   
  
“I need you to watch Jack for me!”  
  
“?”  
  
“Please? I’ll be back, I promise!”  
  
Phil was still utterly confused but agreed, and Tooth hurried off without looking back.

 

* * *

 

 

She found him in the Globe Room.  
  
He was staring at the fire with such an air of concentration that she wondered if he’d even noticed her come in.   
  
“Lleu?”  
  
The spirit of summer didn’t respond, either not having heard or choosing to ignore her. Without warning, he thrust his hands out towards the fire, his eyes shut and his face a mask of utter determination.  
  
For a moment nothing happened.   
  
The fire started to flicker like a dying candle, and Tooth held out her own hand as if to stop him, shocked as realisation hit her.  
  
Lleu reeled back as if he’d been stabbed, clutching at his chest in agony. The fire flickered back to life.  
  
“Lleu! What are you doing?! Are you okay?!”  
  
Lleu fell to his knees, curling in on himself, his breathing heavy. Tooth crouched beside him, hesitating; unsure what to do. After a few minutes his breathing evened out and he looked up at her.  
  
“Are you alright?” she asked softly.  
  
“I… I need to let it out…” he panted. On all fours, he crawled over to the fire. Ignoring Tooth’s protest, he thrust his hand right into the centre of the flame.   
  
Tooth jumped back as the fire roared, the flames extending to twice their height before dying back down as Lleu pulled back his hand.  
  
“What was that?” she gasped.  
  
“I think I know what’s wrong with Jack.”

 

* * *

 

 

“What’s going on?” North asked, forcing his way into the crowded bathroom.  
  
“I know what’s wrong with Jack,” Lleu announced from the far side of the room; he was well aware his presence would do nothing to help the overheating winter spirit.  
  
“Yeah, he’s got bad heat stroke,” Bunny frowned, crossing his arms.  
  
“No,” Lleu shook his head. “It’s more than that. This is something that can’t be cured by any amount of coldness or any care from outside forces. Jack has to heal himself. So we need to wake him up.”  
  
“How?” Tooth bit her lip. “He hasn’t woken up for days.”  
  
“I can’t get close without hurting him, so I need to you do whatever you can. Try shaking him or something.”  
  
No one moved, none wanting to do anything that would even remotely harm their youngest member.  
  
Lleu growled, rolling his eyes. “The longer you leave this, the worse it gets!”  
  
That got them moving. However hesitantly, Bunny was the one to step forward. He placed his paws on the winter spirit’s shoulders and shook gently.  
  
“Jack? Come on, Frostbite; you need to wake up.”  
  
Jack’s head lolled to the side from the slight force but that was all. Bunny frowned and shook harder with the same results. He looked back at his fellow Guardians helplessly.   
  
“Let me try,” North stepped forward, Sandy hastily moving out of his way. “Jack,” he called, tapping the side of the boy’s face with the back of his hand. “Wake up!”  
  
Lleu ran a hand down his face and groaned. “We do _not_ have time for this.” He stalked forwards pushing the Guardians out of his way. He seized Jack roughly by his shirt, hauling him a little ways out of the snow-filled bathtub. “Listen up, Frost! That day I told you we weren’t friends? I was lying! Because I didn’t want something like this to happen! Your friends are worried about you so you’re going to get up off your backside and out into the snow and heal yourself, you got that?! We can’t help you. If you’re too stupid as to try and melt your own snow, then that’s your decision. But don’t you _dare_ make the people that care about you worry because of your mistake!”  
  
“Wait, what?” Bunny asked, sharing horrified looks with the others in the room.  
  
Lleu gave Jack a good shake when the Guardian of Fun didn’t so much as twitch. “Wake up, Jack!” Lleu took a deep breath, his expression going completely blank. “Fine,” he let Jack fall back into the tub of snow. “Then you leave me no choice.” Lleu rolled up Jack’s sleeve and wrapped his hand firmly around the winter spirit’s exposed forearm.   
  
The reaction was instantaneous. Jack’s brows scrunched together in agony, weakly trying to tug his arm away from the source of his pain. Lleu could hear the Guardians yelling at him to stop. Someone grabbed his shoulder, trying to pull him away, but he simply increased his body temperature and they were forced to let go.  
  
Jack started to cry out from the extended exposure, the skin under Lleu’s hand turning bright red.  
  
“Wake up, Frost!” Lleu shouted down at him. “Wake up and I’ll let go!”  
  
Jack’s eyes snapped open, his body springing upright with enough force to knock Lleu back. Dazed, he stared at his opposite and then winced, looking down at his burnt arm. “What did you…?” he croaked.  
  
Lleu stepped back, trying to lessen the impact his natural heat would have on the ill winter spirit. “You need to get your staff, go outside and let it out before you kill yourself,” he ordered.   
  
Jack’s attention shot up to Lleu.   
  
“I don’t know why you decided to try and melt ice; you should know the consequences of that. You got yourself into this mess, and you’re the only one who can get yourself out. So get going before I have to drag you.”  
  
Tooth was the first to recover, closing her gaping mouth and flying over to Jack, helping him to get up.   
  
“I’ll go get staff,” North announced before slipping out of the room.  
  
It took five minutes of unproductive hobbling before Bunny got frustrated and hauled an indignant Jack over his shoulder and marched the rest of the way out of the workshop.   
  
“You’re an idiot,” Bunny grumbled.  
  
“…Would be better now… if you hadn’t stopped me… earlier,” Jack sighed.  
  
“You wouldn’t even need to get better if you hadn’t pulled a stunt like that in the first place! What were you thinking?!”  
  
“…They were going… to die… Couldn’t… let them die… my fault.”  
  
“What do you mean, Sweet Tooth?” Tooth asked softly as she flew alongside them.  
  
Jack didn’t answer, his eyes sliding closed. A jostle from Bunny snapped them back open.  
  
“No falling asleep,” Bunny ordered sternly, earning him a half-hearted groan.  
  
North rendezvoused with them at the main entrance, thoroughly thawed staff in hand. From there they all walked out into the darkness together – only Lleu remaining behind – Bunny giving Jack a light shake every few minutes to keep him awake.   
  
Bunny carefully lowered the groggy, feverish winter spirit from his shoulder and onto the ground, leaving one paw securely on the kid’s elbow to keep him upright. When they deemed him capable of concentrating for more than a minute, North handed him the staff.  
  
“Do you know what to do?” North asked concernedly.   
  
Jack sent a meaningful glare at Bunny. “Yes.”  
  
Bunny wisely did not comment, instead releasing Jack who leant heavily on his staff.   
  
“You… might want to… move back,” Jack warned.  
  
The Guardians hesitated only a moment before doing as instructed – but staying close enough that they could come to his aid if the youngest Guardian required their assistance.  
  
Jack spared them only a glance. Much like the first time, he closed his eyes, but this time he had his staff – it would be nowhere near as difficult to channel his powers. But days spent under the throes of a fever had sapped him of the little strength he had left; he could barely lift his staff let alone conjure a storm. But, he supposed, it wasn’t really creating a blizzard… more like releasing one. He just hoped it wasn’t so big that it damaged North’s workshop. Or his fellow Guardians.   
  
Summoning every ounce of strength he could, and ignoring the protests of his aching body, Jack lifted his conduit above his head, pointing it directly towards the sky. He focussed in on his overheated core, willing the heat to flee through his outstretched arms and into the frozen landscape around him.   
  
He knew it was working when the burning intensified. What had originally been a flame in his chest was now an inferno raging through his body. He cried out weakly at the pain of it, his knees shaking from the exertion of keeping themselves upright. But he would not fall. He would not lose.  
  
Slowly, agonisingly slowly, the heat directed itself through his shoulders, up his arms, and into his staff. The wood grew painfully warm in his grasp but he refused to let go. The wind intensified around him, whirling faster and faster until, even if his eyes had been open, he would have seen nothing through the swirling snow. Through the heat he could feel the ground beneath him getting colder.   
  
And then, all at once, it was over. The heat was gone. Utterly spent, Jack fell to his knees, his arms falling limp at his sides. The snow continued its torrent around him, much larger than the one he had suppressed over a week ago. Even if he’d had the energy to lift his arm, he wouldn’t have been able to see his hand in front of his face. The wind whipped past his ears, a low whistling blocking out all else.  
  
Jack allowed himself to fall back, expecting to land in a soft dune of snow. The ground, however, was solid. He tilted his head and was surprised to find the once snow-covered landscape was solid ice. A small part of him wondered how far it stretched.  
  
He could hear someone calling out to him, but their voice was being blown away by the wind.   
  
“Wind,” he managed, tightening his slipping grip on his staff. “Send it… further…” consciousness fled him before he could finish, but the wind understood what its beloved winter spirit wanted. Slowly, the storm moved further out, allowing the Guardians to rush to Jack’s side.  
  
“Jack!” Tooth plonked herself gracelessly down beside him, grabbing his face in her hands.   
  
“I think his fever’s broken,” North said, pressing the back of his hand over Jack’s forehead. “Remind me to thank Lleu.”  
  
Sandy pointed to a snowflake that had appeared above him, then over to the snow piling up on the edges of the now solid circle of ice a good hundred metres away.   
  
North nodded, easily lifting Jack’s lithe figure off the ice and over to the snow dunes. They weren’t going to take any chances – they would keep him as cold as possible until they were 100% sure he was okay.  
  
It would take another two days before Jack woke again, this time not delirious and, although weak, much better than he had been the last time. It would take a further three days after that and a great deal of love and care from his strange, mix-mashed family before he would be able to stand on his own, and another week before they would let him go back to dealing with winter – and certainly not before making him swear never to do something as stupid as melting snow again.  
  
But Jack wouldn’t make any promises.  
  
A fortnight later it would be like nothing had even happened, with the exception, of course, of the mothering the other Guardians seemed to do that wouldn’t start to die down for at least another two months. And although Jack found it annoying at times, on the whole he was indescribably grateful. He was reminded that if Pitch hadn’t decided to try and destroy all belief in the Guardians, if he hadn’t become a Guardian himself, then he would have been all alone with no one to help him or to care about him. A small part of him wondered if these people he considered family would have ever cared for him at all if that hadn’t happened. But he buried that voice, unwilling to let his fears for what might have been rule him. Not when there were people who did care for him, regardless of how it had come to be.   
  
A month after returning to the field, Jack saw them – the small family that he had tried to save what felt like so long ago. They were no longer huddled close together, fear dominating their features. They were walking, holding hands, and their clothes were warmer and cleaner. They were even smiling.   
  
As he continued to watch, he followed them through the town, to where the three eventually met up with the man he had seen that night, a slender woman by his side.   
  
A grin seeped its way onto Jack’s face. The man, it appeared, had done more for these people than he could have ever hoped for. Perhaps, then, what had felt like a disaster had actually been a blessing in disguise. And, as he flew off further south, Jack couldn’t help but reflect that things like that had been happening a lot lately.


	12. Family Tree

Jack sat down on the soft grass in front of the worn, tilted stones. The surrounding vegetation had started to grow over the markers – the site no longer used and rarely visited by anyone. He had hardly paid the small graveyard and attention before he became a Guardian and got his memories back. But now that the faded names carved into the tombstones meant something to him he found himself unable to stay away.  
  
‘ _Here lies Emma Overland, loving daughter, wife and mother*_ ’   
  
The dates underneath were too far gone to be legible. Despite the gloomy atmosphere, Jack felt a small smile grace his lips. He could picture his little sister growing up into a beautiful woman. She would have made a wonderful mother. He was glad she was able to have a good life after he’d gone. His only regret was that he hadn’t been there to witness it; if he’d known who she was he would have had a lot of fun watching over her and her family.  
  
Jack turned to look at the tombstone to the left of Emma’s. He recognised the name as one of the village boys they’d grown up with. Jack hoped he and Emma had been happy together. A little further back was a joined grave-marker belonging to his parents. But it was the marker on the right of Emma’s that really made his stomach drop.  
  
 _‘In loving memory of Jackson Overland, died saving the life of his sister. Gone, but never forgotten’_  
  
It gave him chills to imagine his own funeral. He looked down at himself. They wouldn’t have even had a body to bury; he was living proof of that.

 

* * *

 

 

The sun was past its peak by the time Jack flew back into Burgess. The few hours he’d spent in the tranquillity of the graveyard, although depressing, had given him a little time to work through some of his thoughts, and to heal.   
  
Figuring it late enough for Jamie to have gotten home from school, Jack made a bee-line for the Bennett household.   
  
“Hey, Jack,” Jamie greeted from his desk as Jack landed nimbly on the windowsill.   
  
“What are you working on?” Jack asked, jumping down into the room.  
  
“Our history teacher’s making us draw family trees.”  
  
“Oh, like tracing your ancestors?” Jack moved to stand behind the boy, looking over his shoulder.  
  
“Yep. Turns out our family’s been in Burgess for hundreds of years.”  
  
Jack’s heart froze as his eyes landed on a specific name a few generations above Jamie. “You…” his voice hitched in his throat.  
  
“Huh?” Jamie followed his gaze. “Oh, she was my great great grandmother,” he explained.   
  
“You’re related to Emma?” he whispered.  
  
“You knew her?”  
  
He nodded dumbly, following the lines to the names of his parents, and then down again to a solitary box with no further connections.  
  
“Jackson was her brother,” Jamie said slowly, noting what had caught the winter spirit’s attention. “But he died saving her… Are you okay?”  
  
Jack had gone several shades paler than usual. He felt like he was suffocating. To see his own name on a family tree, to realise that the words on his grave – _Gone, but never forgotten_ – hadn’t been a lie…   
  
Then something deeper sunk in. Jamie and Sophie Bennett were related to him. Were descendants of his sister.  
  
“Ah… yeah,” he shook himself, sitting heavily on the end of Jamie’s bed. “Just a bit of a shock.”  
  
“What were they like? I mean, do you remember anything that I could use in my report?”  
  
“I can’t tell you much about Emma – I didn’t get to see her get much older than you,” Jack laughed humourlessly. “Jackson, on the other hand, I can answer any question you have about him.”  
  
“Okay…” Jamie was looking at him strangely. “How did he die?”  
  
“Ice skating. The ice cracked and he fell in.”  
  
“How do you know?”  
  
“I was there.”  
  
“Why didn’t you do something to help him, then?” Jamie frowned.  
  
Jack heaved a sigh. “There wasn’t much that could be done. Besides, if I had, I wouldn’t be here now.”  
  
“What do you mean?” Jamie put down his pencil, giving him his full attention.  
  
“I mean, if I didn’t die I wouldn’t have become Jack Frost.”  
  
Jamie’s mouth fell open in a silent gape. “You? _You’re_ Jackson Overland?!”  
  
“Surprise?”  
  
“Do you know what this means?!”  
  
“Uh… I owe you ten years worth of birthday presents?”  
  
“I’m related to Jack Frost!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Jack's sister isn't named in the movie, so I generally go with Emma (purely because there's already a Pippa and having to characters with the same name would be confusing). Feel free to substitute it with whatever name you prefer.
> 
> No OCs in this one! (Hoorah!) But yeah, lots of headcanon...


	13. Adopted

He was supposed to be sulking. Winter was over and it was quite clear he wasn’t welcome in autumn; the barren landscape of the Antarctic was the perfect place to go. But it was a bit hard to be mope-y when you were surrounded by birds.  
  
Jack sighed as he looked up at the colony of Emperor Penguins that had gathered around him, chattering to themselves as they waddled about. Like all animals, they could easily see him, but, honestly, weren’t wild creatures supposed to avoid humans?  
  
Jack turned to the left as something nudged his arm. A large penguin of beautiful colouring wacked him with its wing repeatedly, making exasperated noises as if in impatience.  
  
“What?” Jack raised an eyebrow. “Sorry, I don’t speak penguin.”  
  
At the penguin’s impatience, another, slightly smaller penguin made its way over, joining in.  
  
“What is wrong with you guys? What do you want?”  
  
Clearly getting frustrated, the larger penguin began obtrusively poking him in the face with its beak. Jack jumped, leaning away. The penguin gave some sort of huff, which Jack was sure was the penguin equivalent of a sigh, and proceeded to regurgitate the pre-digested remains of some dead fish onto the compact ice.  
  
Jack’s mouth opened in horror, but, seeing the glint in the smaller penguin’s eye, he quickly clamped it shut. “O…kay… you wanted to feed me?” he glanced sidelong at the disgusting pile of mush then back up at the penguin. “That’s very generous of you, but I’m okay, thanks. I’m not sure if you noticed, but I’m not one of your chicks.”  
  
The penguins seemed to accept that, making no move to defend the offering as a flock of five chicks hurried over, looking very much like they would topple with their wings waving about and uneven gait. With surprisingly little conflict, they shared the meal and, even more surprising, proceeded to clamber onto the unsuspecting winter spirit.  
  
“Uh… guys, I’m not your mom, you should probably… or, you could just make yourselves comfortable…” he couldn’t help but sigh as he looked down at the small, fluffy, _adorable_ babies as they fought for the dominant position in his lap. He was pretty sure one had even managed to climb up into his hood.  
  
Jack smiled as they looked up at him and chirped.  
  
“You’re not getting any food for me. No way am I pre-digesting seafood, thank you very much.”  
  
Ever so slowly, the penguins moved closer together, until finally Jack found himself sitting in the middle of the colony. More chicks had been pushed to the centre, forming a fluffy white blanket on all sides. If it weren’t for the fact that they were sitting in the South Pole, he may well have overheated.  
  
There was a sudden cacophony of noise – a mixture of anger and alarm – as the formation broke; many penguins trying to hurry away from the shoreline while others desperately dove out of the water. Jack himself was jostled, a few penguins tugging on his hoodie, trying to get him to flee with them.  
  
The winter spirit pulled away, allowing the wind to blow him to the front line. A large spotted seal – a leopard seal, he identified – was diving out of the water, snapping its sharp teeth at the heels and tail feathers of the terrified birds.  
  
Without even thinking, Jack aimed his staff at the water around the seal, letting loose a blast of power. The water instantly froze, trapping the seal chest-deep in the ice. Jack gave a cry of triumph, breaking into laughter as the penguins joined in.  
  
Satisfied that the ice would hold long enough to escape, he rejoined the colony, heading further inland.  
  
There was a steep slope ahead; the penguins would never be able to walk down it without falling – especially the younger ones.  
  
“Maybe we can go around,” Jack suggested, pointing further along the ledge to where the snow banks were flatter.  
  
The penguins seemed to laugh at him, keeping up their steady pace.  
  
“Alright, humour me.”  
  
And humour him they did. In a charging fleet, the penguins threw themselves down, landing on their bellies and sliding across the ice like living toboggans. Even the chicks showed no fear in the face of such a height, chirping merrily alongside their parents.  
  
Jack stumbled forwards as something pushed at the back of his knees.  
  
“Whoa,” he wobbled, looking over his shoulder at the penguin nudging him closer to the edge. “Wait, I’m not sure I–”  
  
His protests were cut off as his bare feet slipped over the ice. He landed hard on his back, flying down the ice head-first, the penguins remaining on the cliff happily jumping down after him. After a minute or so of absolute terror, the penguins on either side of him began instructive quacking – not that he could understand a word of it. Maybe they were laughing at him again. A slap from a wing was all it took to push him over onto his stomach and his cries of fear quickly turned to laughter.  
  
Observing his new friends, Jack pressed his arms flat against his body, making himself more aerodynamic as they sped across the frozen terrain. It was fun, but perhaps slightly less painful on an actual toboggan. Looking ahead, Jack’s eyes widened in horror as the end of the ice slide suddenly appeared, giving out into open water.  
  
The chicks and some of the adult penguins manoeuvred themselves, easily slowing their momentum and picking themselves up before reaching the drop off, while others opted for hurtling themselves off the edge like some sick thrill ride.  
  
The penguins beside him showed no hints of stopping. And all at once the ground was gone and Jack was hurtling down under the force of gravity. He breathed a huge sigh of relief as the wind swept under him, catching him in the air before he broke the surface.  
  
 _MiM, these guys are insane!_ He slumped gratefully on the solid ice, spreading out his arms as he sprawled across the ground. A contented smile wormed its way onto his face as he felt the bodies of several penguins huddling up close to him.

Winter could take its time – he was quite content exactly where he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A less angsty one this time (because he's the Guardian of Fun not Misery and Despair). More on the 'fluffy' side... if you catch my drift ;)
> 
> This is set pre-movie, but not by much


	14. Pineapple Sage

“That time of year already, huh?” Jack asked himself as petals dancing on a warm breeze filled the clearing that housed his lake. “I thought you were avoiding me.”  
  
The brunette landed daintily on the adjacent bank, the flowers in her long braid and her white dress stilling as the breeze died down. She made no sign that she had heard, or that she had even noticed him. Jack couldn’t help but smile. That was so like her. He was pretty sure she lived by the motto ‘if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all’.  
  
May Queen went contentedly about her business, clearing the frost and snow and nurturing growing flower buds.  
  
“What’s spring like?”   
  
Jack’s question seemed to catch her off guard and she turned her head to face him. “Pardon?”  
  
“Spring. What’s it like? It’s usually too hot for me to get a good look.”  
  
May was silent for a long time and Jack began to wonder if she would respond. She turned away from him, resuming her work.  
  
Jack sighed, getting to his feet. The wind had been tugging him to move on with the winter, concerned about the temperature as always, but Jack liked to stay in his home for as long as possible.  
  
“Colourful.”  
  
Jack started at the sudden spoken words, giving the spirit of spring his full attention. She had her back to him, but seemed aware of his confusion.  
  
“Spring,” she clarified. “It’s colourful. And warm.”  
  
“Oh,” he shifted, a light smile on his face. This was the most response he’d ever gotten out of her. “I’ll have to keep an eye out for a cold day.”  
  
A silence settled over them, but it was nothing like the awkward one that usually accommodated their encounters. This one was more… peaceful. The wind gave another restless tug as the sun reached its zenith. The temperature was rising as the days went past and, while he could stay in moderately warm temperatures, he would need to leave before long.  
  
He moved to allow the wind to carry him but stopped when he heard the call of his name. Looking back over his shoulder, he was surprised to see May watching him, a slight furrow to her brow and a flower held delicately in her small hands.  
  
“Here,” she said, and the petal-ridden breeze carried the flower over to him.   
  
The edges of its petals began to frost as he caught it, but he paid that no mind, sending the spring spirit a quizzical expression.  
  
“It’s a pineapple sage,” she explained. “An edible flower. You don’t look like you’ve eaten in a while.”  
  
Jack stood bewildered as May, seemingly embarrassed, returned to her gardening.   
  
“Thank you,” he said, genuinely touched. When she did not so much as glance at him, Jack took his cue to leave and allowed the wind to carry him down south.

 

When he returned that winter, Jack was surprised to see the lake surrounded by a beautiful assortment of winter flowers.


	15. Mother's Day

“There are… a lot of fairies with you today,” North noted, eyes scanning the rather large swarm of tooth fairies fluttering around Tooth.  
  
“It’s Mother’s Day,” Tooth explained. “They always get like this.”  
  
A coughing fit broke out on the other side of the room and they all turned to see Jack choking on a cookie. North hurried over, giving the youngest Guardian a big thump on the back. Cookie dislodged, Jack took several deep breaths, his hand over his chest.  
  
Sandy frowned, a few symbols flashing above him.  
  
“Yeah, I’m okay,” Jack rasped. When he had recovered sufficiently, he turned to Tooth. “That’s _today_?!”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Oh, man! I’m so late!” In what could only be described as panic, Jack jumped up from his seat, grabbing his staff as he did so. “Where did I leave it?... Should be somewhere there…” he continued to mutter to himself as he moved closer to a window. Bunny stopped him before he had the chance to open it.  
  
“What’s the rush, Frostbite?”  
  
Jack stared at him as if he were insane. “What’s the rush? _What’s the rush?!_ Gah!” he threw his arms up and the window flew open in a gust of wind. “Yes, I know!” he told his silent companion. “Sorry,” he told the Guardians. “I’ve gotta go _right now_. Ugh, she’s gonna kill me!” And with that he was gone.  
  
“She?” Bunny asked the empty space.  
  
“Do you think… he could be referring to his mother?” Tooth asked slowly.  
  
“But he is 300 years old,” North pointed out. “Surely mother no longer around?”  
  
“No, Sandy’s right,” Tooth said, understanding the golden symbols the Sandman was displaying. “Just because she’s… gone, doesn’t mean he couldn’t visit her.”  
  
“Nah, mates, it sounded like he was talking about someone still around.”

 

* * *

 

 

Jack was well out of breath by the time he arrived in the meadow. She always kept it at a reasonable temperature; not too hot or too cold. Rather than flying in through the window like he would at North’s, Jack landed hurriedly on the grass and ran up to the door of the beautiful castle. It was made of only natural materials, with ivy and plants growing along the stone walls. He would expect nothing less of her. And, also to be expected, one of the walls was little more than a pile of rubble. She sure had a nasty temper.  
  
Almost timidly, he raised his hand to knock on the wooden door. A small woodland sprite answered, giving him a look of disapproval.  
  
“Yes, I know, I’m late,” Jack sighed. “Please don’t hold me up and make it worse.”  
  
The sprite nodded, gesturing for him to follow. They travelled through several winding corridors until finally they stood before an extravagant pine door intricately carved with plant designs of crawling ivy and blooming flowers. The sprite hurried off, leaving Jack alone.  
  
Taking a deep breath, prepared to accept his fate, he knocked tentatively.  
  
There was a moment’s pause, then, “Come in.”  
  
Jack pushed open the door and stepped into the room. Lleu’s presence had made the room warmer than it otherwise would have been, but a window had been opened to compensate. May Queen and Ceres sat opposite each other; May frowning her disapproval and Ceres smiling as if it were her birthday; no doubt she was expecting him to get in trouble. There were a number of others seated around, also; Rain, dressed as usual in her multicoloured dress, Storm, and several sprites and pixies to name a few. At the head of the table was the cause for his unease.  
  
The woman appeared deceivingly young, no older than thirty, but Jack knew her to be nearly as old as the Man in the Moon himself. Her long hair was sleek black, appearing to meld with what appeared to be clouds around her. She held herself with an air of regalia, but her face held only kindness.  
  
“Happy Mother’s Day,” Jack said awkwardly as he loitered in the doorway, not sure if he should sit down or not.  
  
“Why thank you, Jack,” Mother Nature beamed, gesturing to an empty seat beside Rain. He hesitated for only a moment before taking it.  
  
Ceres’ smile quickly slipped into a frown when it became clear he would not be on the receiving end of her rage. Jack couldn’t be more grateful for Mother’s good mood.  
  
“How is life as a Guardian?” Mother Nature asked, sliding him a piece of cake.  
  
“I’m enjoying it,” Jack said truthfully, accepting the cake lest he anger her. “It’s good to be able to do something helpful.”  
  
There was a ‘tch’ somewhere further down the table, he suspected from Ceres, but it was ignored.  
  
“I’m sure you’re also enjoying the company of the Guardians.”  
  
A very uncomfortable atmosphere settled over the table. Everyone present was aware of Jack’s 300 years of solitude. “Yes.” The slight bulge in his pocket allowed for a quick subject change. He carefully pulled out the meticulously wrapped present and slid it across the table top towards her. “I, uh, made you something,” he said, looking away self consciously.  
  
“Oh, that’s so sweet of you,” Mother Nature gently lifted the small object and began to unwrap it. In the silence that followed, the others likewise pulled out the gifts they had prepared, placing them on the table in front of her.  
  
Mother Nature’s eyes widened at the ball that fell into her hands. The orb, made completely of ice, contained an elaborately detailed ice-sculpture of her castle and the surrounding meadow, right down to the flowers and the fruits on the trees.  
  
“Jack,” she seemed to sigh. “It’s beautiful.”  
  
“It, um, it won’t melt, either.”  
  
“Thank you,” she was genuinely touched. She really was in a good mood.  
  
The remainder of the visit played out comfortably, with the others presenting their gifts and Mother Nature admiring each like it was the most precious thing in the world.

 

Jack heaved a great sigh of relief when he flew off that afternoon. While she could be loving and nurturing – everything a mother should be – Mother Nature was terrifying when she was angry, and it didn’t take much to set her off. Although she wasn’t technically anyone’s mother, they all felt a sort of obligation to treat her as such; especially with their being nature spirits.  
  
But now that that was over with, he could spend the rest of the day the way he was supposed to.

 

* * *

 

The graveyard was, like always, silent when he arrived. The wind blew gently through the vine-covered clearing, blowing dead leaves off the graves.  
  
“Hey, mom,” he said with a sad smile, seating himself before her tombstone. “Look, I managed to get spring’s best flowers for you,” he laid the bouquet down in front of him, arranging the flowers so they wouldn’t fall over. “It wasn’t easy, either. I had to receive a lecture on tardiness before I could even ask!”  
  
He took a breath and turned his face up towards the sky. “I hope you’re happy where you are.”  
  
A few leaves from the overhanging trees broke free from their branches, dancing as they fluttered to the ground below.  
  
“Happy Mother’s Day.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This turned out... a little more miserable than I'd intended. 
> 
> I'm an Aussie, so I use the Australian spelling for things. But 'mom' is my one exception. Because, plainly 'mum' just looks weird.
> 
> One more thing to point out (that I have yet to remember to tell the people over at FFN) is that by the time I realised there is a canon Mother Nature in the GoC books, I'd already come up with my own version of her. So this is NOT the canon version...


	16. Vendetta of Elves

Jack stared at his fellow Guardians, an indecipherable look on his face. They _had_ to be joking. Right?  
  
“Well? What do you think?” North beamed, holding up the current source of Jack’s stupor – a pair of blue high-top sneakers.  
  
“Did I do something wrong?” Jack managed, finding his voice at last.  
  
The others looked confused. _Huh, I guess they know less about me than I thought_.   
  
“What? Of course not,” Tooth reassured. “Why would you think that?”  
  
“Those are shoes,” Jack explained slowly, as if to a child.  
  
“Your ability to point out the obvious astounds me,” Bunny smirked.  
  
Sandy tilted his head, a question mark appearing above him.  
  
Jack raised an eyebrow. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I _don’t wear shoes_.” He gestured to his bare feet.   
  
“Yes, which is why we got you these,” North smiled, holding the offending objects a little higher.  
  
“Uh, thanks for the gesture and all, but no thanks. I haven’t worn shoes for the last 300 years and I’m certainly not going to start now.”  
  
“What about that cut on your foot?" Tooth wrung her hands together.  
  
“What about it? It’s already been dealt with.” The cut she was talking about was more of a scratch, really, that he’d received after falling out of a tree. He’d been quick to freeze it over and that should have been the end of it. Unfortunately, his new family would not let these things slide by without a fight.  
  
“But if you’d have been wearing shoes, you wouldn’t have cut your foot at all!” Tooth argued.  
  
Jack sighed, rolling his eyes. They really weren’t going to let this drop, were they? “What about the Kangaroo? I don’t see you trying to make _him_ wear shoes.”  
  
“Oi! I’m _not_ a kangaroo, mate,” Bunny snapped dangerously. “I’m a bunny, and bunnies don’t wear shoes.”  
  
“Yeah? Well neither do I,” Jack returned the glare, his tone holding the same venom as his colleague.   
  
Sandy raised his brows, eyes widening in an ‘okaaaay’ kind of expression. He flashed a number of symbols above his head, a rabbit, shoes, a snowflake, and then back to shoes.  
  
“No way, mate,” Bunny shook his head. “I am _not_ going to defile myself by wearing shoes.”  
  
“But it’s okay for me to?” Jack asked incredulously.  
  
“Okay, enough!” North interrupted, effectively ending the argument. “Jack, will you just try them?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“What if Bunny wears shoes, too?”  
  
“Hey!”  
  
Jack brought a finger to his chin in contemplation. “Hmm…”  
  
“I did not agree to this!”  
  
“Well?” North ignored the Easter Bunny’s complaints.  
  
“…No. Not even the hilarity of Bunny wearing shoes is enough to convince me to put those _things_ ,” the word was said as if it were poison on his lips. “On my feet. I. Do. Not. Wear. Shoes.”   
  
“Oh yeah?” Bunny half-smiled, but there was no joy in it. “We’ll see about that.”

 

* * *

 

 

The topic of the shoes remained unsaid for days, but Jack knew better than to think it had all blown over. No, Bunny had taken his defiance as a challenge. And there was no way the Pooka was going to back down without a fight.  
  
So Jack had been on high alert.   
  
The Guardian of fun sighed as he shifted into a more comfortable position on the branch he was sitting on. He had mostly avoided the Workshop, preferring the safety of high treetops – even if Bunny could probably jump up with ease. He glanced down at his bare feet. 300 years really was a long time. Even when he was human he hardly wore shoes; they were expensive and restrictive.   
  
The wind nudged him comfortingly and a small smile graced his lips. “They’re more likely to get you to wear shoes than me,” he told it quietly.   
  
As he gazed down at the frozen pond he couldn’t help a passing thought for the ice skates he’d left on the ice. Had Emma taken them back to the village with her? He certainly hadn’t seen them when he’d first awoken as Jack Frost. Perhaps he could make an exception for them… Although the whole ice-skating incident had nearly cost his sister her life, and _had_ cost him his.   
  
Jack settled back against the tree, watching as golden dream sand floated elegantly across the darkened sky.

 

* * *

 

 

Jack jerked awake as something touched his foot. In one quick, fluid movement, he drew his legs in closer to his body and struck out with his staff. There was a curse and a loud thud as something fell into the snow banks bellow.   
  
Taking a moment to calm himself, Jack tilted his body to peer down at the ground, searching the darkness for his assailant.  
  
He wasn’t sure whether to be angry or laugh at what he saw.  
  
“You should know better than to sneak up on me, Cottontail,” he smirked, opting for humour.  
  
“To be honest I wasn’t expecting ya t’be such a light sleeper,” Bunny grumbled.  
  
Jack jumped down, landing lightly a short distance from the Guardian of Hope, his grip on his staff tight in case he needed to make a quick getaway.  
  
“You of all people should understand the necessities of being aware when you sleep outside,” he pointed out. “You should thaw out in an hour or so, if you go back somewhere warm,” he gestured to Bunny’s hands, which were frozen to one of the shoes the other Guardians had been trying to get him to wear.  
  
Bunny muttered something under his breath and struggled to his feet. “This isn’t over, Frostbite,” he glared.  
  
Jack didn’t doubt it, not letting himself relax until Bunny had disappeared down a rabbit-hole.

 

* * *

 

 

The next attack came about a week later, but after the tree-incident, he had been more alert than ever, having taken to sleeping in Jack-O’s pumpkin patch where nobody would think to look for him. But then the lights had gone off.  
  
Jack sighed as he watched them. It wasn’t as likely to be an emergency as it would have been if this were before he’d become a Guardian; hardly a week went by without the Guardians seeing each other these days. But there was no way he could get away with ignoring it. So with an air of resignation, Jack allowed the wind to carry him north.  
  
“So what’s the emergency?” Jack asked as he landed lightly in the Globe Room of North’s workshop. The words had barely left his mouth before two strong sets of hands gripped his arms, lifting him a good foot off the ground.   
  
_This feels familiar_ , Jack thought, kicking his legs wildly in an attempt to free himself. The yetis holding him growled, struggling to maintain their grip. “Let me go!”  
  
“Not until you put on the shoes, mate,” Bunny smirked, lifting the devil’s craftwork menacingly.  
  
North, Tooth and Sandy said nothing as they watched, but it was clear they were siding with the Easter Bunny. Traitors.   
  
“Over my dead body!” Jack snapped his mouth shut, frowning at his choice of words as the other Guardians’ eyes widened. “…Let me rephrase that.”  
  
“Nah, mate, I think you just gave me permission.”  
  
Jack tugged harder against his restraints as Bunny stepped forward. Twisting his hand, he managed to whack one of the yetis on the head with his staff. The grumbling yeti winced, releasing his grip only slightly. But it was enough. With more freedom to move, Jack froze the pair of them as he pulled himself free, flying up to perch on the rafters.  
  
“That was dirty,” Jack glared down at his make-shift family. His glare was returned only by Bunny.  
  
“You’re not leaving us with much of a choice, mate.”  
  
“Why does it even matter?”  
  
“I could ask you the same thing,” Bunny folded his arms.  
  
Jack sighed – he seemed to be doing that a lot lately – and turned his attention to North. “Is there any real reason we were summoned here, apart from ganging up on me?”  
  
North shifted uncomfortably. “Not really.”  
  
“Right then, I have things to do.”

Jack groaned in exhaustion as he leant back against one of the larger pumpkins in Jack-O’s graveyard. Honestly, it had been two weeks and they were _still_ trying to trick him into wearing those damn shoes. They’d tried reverse psychology, getting him to choose the shoes, making all the elves wear shoes in some sort of mob-mentality, even going so far as to put a bucket-load of hazardous objects across the floors of the workshop. And, Jack was proud to say, all had failed miserably, particularly that last one; he could fly, after all.  
  
He was really starting to reach the end of his tether. There was only so much antagonising one person could take. So he wasn’t really in the best of moods when the next attack began.

  
“Ugh,” Jack scrunched up his nose, lifting his foot off the sticky patch on the floor of the workshop. “ _Why_ is there honey on the floor?”  
  
“If you were wearing shoes, it would not be problem,” North said casually as he passed, careful to steer clear of the pool.   
  
“Not you, too,” Jack’s shoulders sagged in exasperation.   
  
“What is big deal? Why won’t you just try them?”  
  
“They’re like coffins for your feet,” Jack replied, wiping his foot against the polished boards.   
  
“But they are protective.”  
  
“Yeah, well my feet are more than capable of protecting themselves.”  
  
North raised an eyebrow sceptically as he glanced down at the currently honey-contaminated topic of their conversation.   
  
Jack rolled his eyes. “It’s a bit harder when they become deliberate targets.” He huffed, giving up on cleaning his foot. “What about you? What’s the big deal with getting me to wear them?”  
  
“Is matter of principle… and Bunny’s pride,” North shrugged.  
  
“Of course,” Jack sighed. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go wash this off.”  
  
Naturally, he couldn’t get any peace even then.   
  
“You know, that wouldn’t have happened if you’d been wearing shoes,” Tooth gestured to the foot Jack was currently cleaning.  
  
“Gah! Would you guys just let it drop?!” He was really starting to border more on anger than exasperation now. “So what if I don’t–”  
  
Jack was cut off as his staff was snatched from his grip and he whirled to see Bunny leaning casually against the door frame.  
  
“Give it back.”  
  
“I will as soon as you try on the shoes,” Bunny replied.   
  
“I swear to MiM I will shave you in your sleep,” Jack threatened, his hand held out in waiting for his conduit. There was a hard edge to his eyes that was rarely seen, especially these days, but Bunny wasn’t going to back down.  
  
“Yeah, not likely.”  
  
“E. Aster Bunnymund, give me my staff right–”   
  
He was cut off once again as something struck him, sending him instantly into a dream of dolphins and penguins.

 

* * *

 

 

When he came to, Jack found himself lying on a couch in the Globe Room. And instantly he could _feel_ something was wrong.  
  
“Sandy, you traitor!” he cried, springing upright and glaring at both the Sandman and the despicable sneakers that had been forced onto his feet while he’d been knocked out.  
  
Sandy looked apologetic, but not guilty.  
  
“You left us with no other choice, mate,” Bunny said darkly, still holding onto Jack’s staff.   
  
“I will get you back for this, Bunnymund.”  
  
“Well, they are on now, why not give them a try?” North shrugged. “Go for walk around room?”  
  
Jack turned his glare on the Cossack, pulling a foot close and tugging uselessly at the laces. “What the heck?! What kind of knot did you _use_?!”  
  
“Is secret wrapping knot,” North said proudly, his triumph clear in his expression.   
  
“Just go for a little walk, Sweet Tooth,” Tooth suggested. “If you don’t like them then, we won’t make you wear them again, okay?”  
  
Jack lowered his head in a mixture of exasperation and resignation. To say he was tired of dealing with this was an understatement. “You promise?”  
  
“Promise,” Bunny nodded.  
  
“Fine,” Jack swung his legs to the side, pushing himself up off the couch. It felt so… _wrong_.   
  
For a start, they were incredibly uncomfortable, and squashed his toes together almost painfully. They greatly restricted the movement of his ankles and didn’t contour with the shape of his feet. But all he had to do was take a few steps then this nightmare would be over.  
  
To be fair, the others did try to contain their laughter. But it was hard when Jack walked like a dog wearing booties – lifting his legs higher than necessary and not bending his feet.  
  
“Oh, shut up!” Jack snapped, crossing his arms in a huff.   
  
“Just walk normally, Jack,” North instructed, struggling to keep a straight face.  
  
“Fine, take these _things_ off me and I will.”  
  
“Walk normally _with them on_ ,” Bunny sighed.  
  
Jack ran an exhausted hand down his face and rolled his eyes. Taking deliberate steps, he concentrated on trying to walk normally, grimacing at the restriction and the way they dug into his feet when they stretched. He knew they couldn’t be good for his ankles.  
  
“There. I walked. I hate them. Get them off.”  
  
Sandy shook his head and came forward, bending down and tugging one end of the laces. Jack’s horror dawned as Sandy’s expression became slightly panicked; the knot growing tighter, not looser. Refusing to meet his eye, the Sandman turned slowly to his accomplices and gestured somewhat weakly to the shoes.  
  
“ _Don’t you dare tell me you can’t get them off_ ,” Jack said quietly.  
  
Sandy cringed, looking hesitantly back over his shoulder at the winter spirit.   
  
The corner of Jack’s eye twitched.   
  
“Calm down, Jack,” North raised his hands defensively, stepping forward. “I will get them off.”  
  
But it seemed Sandy’s attempt had made it impossible even for him. “Sandy,” North said in a near whisper. “What did you do?”  
  
Jack held out his hand toward Bunny. “Give me my staff.”  
  
“…What for?” Bunny asked suspiciously.  
  
“I’ll cut them off.”  
  
Bunny didn’t seem convinced.  
  
Jack narrowed his eyes and the shoes on his feet frosted over until they looked as though they were made of ice. “Then you will be held responsible for the consequences,” was all he said before slamming his foot against the base of the Globe.  
  
The shoe shattered, bits of ice and material splintering in all directions, creating several small cuts on Jack’s now freed foot as they went. But Jack hardly noticed, repeating the process with the remaining shoe.  
  
Tooth held out her hand towards him at the sight of the scratches, her mouth open as if she wanted to say something but no words escaped her. The others were equally speechless.   
  
There was a sudden blur of movement and all at once a group of small, elf-like creatures were standing around Jack, hands on their hips and prominent frowns of anger and disapproval on their faces.   
  
Jack’s eyes widened, seeming more scared than shocked. “It was him!” he shouted, pointing accusingly at Bunny. “I didn’t want to wear them but they made me and then we couldn’t get them off and he wouldn’t give me my staff – I was just going to cut the laces but they left me with no choice!” He said all of this rather quickly, but the elves seemed to understand, turning their anger onto the nervous Pooka.  
  
“Ah, look, fellas,” Bunny took a small step backwards. “Can’t we talk about this?”  
  
The elves charged as Bunny bolted, chasing him out of the room.  
  
North, Sandy and Tooth watched him go, then looked in confusion at Jack.  
  
“Those would be shoe elves,” Jack replied to Sandy’s question mark. “They’re nice if you keep on their good side, but harm shoes and they will come at you with a vendetta.” He casually strolled forward, picking up his staff from where it had fallen in Bunny’s escape.  
  
“Sweet Tooth, your feet!” Tooth gasped, eyeing the scratches; some deeper than others.  
  
Jack shrugged, bumping them with the end of his staff and watching in satisfaction as they frosted over. “To think wearing shoes would cause more harm than not,” he mused, jumping up onto the window frame and disappearing into the white beyond.  



	17. Gold at the End of the Rainbow

“Will ye stop?!”  
  
Jack halted midflight and scanned the area for the painfully familiar voice.  
  
“No, I won’t stop! This is my job! It’s not my fault you leave your money lying around!”  
  
 _Oooh_ , Jack almost laughed, spotting the two arguing down in a clearing below. This was an old argument. Very slowly, as to avoid detection, the winter spirit descended, landing on the edge of the tree line.  
  
“Well, if ye didn’t leave a beacon guiding them right to it–”  
  
“Are you two at it _again_?”  
  
They both startled, swinging around to face him, one with a look of irritation and the other exasperation.  
  
“You stay outta this, Frost,” the Leprechaun warned, shaking his finger accusingly.  
  
“Jack, what are you doing here?” Rain sighed, the fight seeming to drain from her.  
  
“I heard you two arguing and figured I may as well try to interrupt before it gets out of hand,” Jack explained, leaning against his staff. “Wouldn’t want a repeat of last time, would we?”  
  
Rain shuddered.   
  
“So what’s it about this time? You still irritated about the rainbows, Pat?”  
  
“That’s Patrick to you, Frost! And it’s none of ye business!”  
  
“He’s mad at me cause my rainbows apparently lead everyone to his gold stashes,” Rain rolled her eyes.  
  
“…You _do_ realise that it’s impossible to reach the end of a rainbow, right? Nobody is going to find your gold, Patrick.”   
  
The Leprechaun growled, looking very much like he was about to attack someone. “Impossible, ye say? Well that’s where you’re wrong. Leprechaun gold has been stolen before!”  
  
“Then just move your pots so they’re not sitting out in the open,” Jack suggested. “Why would you even want to hide them in plain sight anyway?”  
  
“That’s a good point,” Rain raised a brow, almost unbelievingly. “I’ll even help you hide them if you want; honestly there’s no reason to fight about this.”  
  
“Bah! And let you go off and tell everybody? Never!” Patrick turned, stalking off into the trees. “I’ll rehide it meself!”  
  
Jack and Rain stood in silence as he went, faces blank. When the little man had gone out of earshot, they couldn’t keep it in anymore, exploding into a fit of laughter.   
  
“That guy, honestly,” Jack said, composing himself. “Any excuse for an argument, huh?”  
  
“I’ll say. It’s all about conspiracy theories with him. Thanks, Jack. I _really_ didn’t want a repeat of last time. Anything where Mother gets involved is not going to end well,” Rain shook her head. “Anyway, I’d better get back to work. I’m sure you have stuff to do, too.”  
  
They exchanged a nod, before Rain took off, heading for areas of rainfall. Jack remained in place a while longer. Rain, at least, had always been civil; maybe because her being a spring and summer spirit meant they didn’t get to see each other often. Shaking himself from his musings, Jack allowed the wind to lift him up off the ground, continuing on his way to North’s workshop.


	18. Revenge Served Hot Part I

There was no moon that night. The clouds floated ominously overhead, blocking out even the quiet twinkling of the stars. And yet Jack remained unafraid as he sat on a branch with his back to the tree trunk, watching light snow drift down around him.   
  
Winter was well underway, and it was certainly keeping him busy. He hadn’t had much free time at all over the last weeks and he found himself missing the company of his newfound family. At least he would see Jamie and Sophie and their friends tomorrow – he had promised them a snow day after all.   
  
In all honesty he shouldn’t have been relaxing the way he was; there was still a lot of work to do. But he was really comfortable; which wasn’t an easy achievement in a tree. As if reading his thoughts, the wind blew gently against him, almost wrapping him in an icy embrace.  
  
“Alright, alright, I’ll take the night off!” Jack laughed, leaning back and shutting his eyes.  
  
They opened again almost instantly as his staff was knocked out of his hand, something chilling clamping his mouth shut. The world span as darkness engulfed him, his vision only coming back into focus to find he was now on the ground, his unseen enemy still holding him firm.  
  
“Oh, do stop squirming, will you?” the velvety voice sighed. “I wouldn’t want to have to knock you out and have you miss all the excitement.”  
  
“Pwch!” Jack cried, his voice muffled by the Boogieman’s hand.  
  
“My, aren’t we clever? Do you want a gold star?” Pitch mocked.  
  
“Wh’ oo mm w’t?”  
  
“What do I want?” Pitch echoed, raising his brow. Seemingly forgetting the question, he turned to his nightmares. “Bury it,” he ordered, glancing over at the staff lying in the snow.  
  
The nightmares hurried to do his bidding, one scooping up the conduit before disappearing between the trees.  
  
Jack’s struggles resumed with renewed fervour.  
  
“What do I want…?” Pitch repeated, almost as if he were mulling it over. “What I want is to have a little _fun_.” With a sinister laugh they were once more consumed by shadows. But this time the scenery where they appeared was completely different.  
  
The sky was suddenly bright, the sun only just reaching its zenith with a few sparse clouds dotting the blue. They appeared to be in some sort of valley with high, unclimbable rock walls on all sides and dry-looking shrubs poking up here and there in the cracks. There was no grass to be seen.  
  
A small expanse of water in the centre could well have been mistaken for a lake… if it weren’t for the vast quantity of steam rising from its surface.  
  
“Honestly you should thank me,” Pitch continued, a smirk plastered on his face. “This is merely a hot spring; I could have taken you to the geysers around the corner.”  
  
The wind buffeted around them, only succeeding in spreading the heat. Already Jack could feel perspiration beading on his skin, the heat leaching all his energy. He struggled to catch his breath, Pitch’s hand limiting his oxygen intake. He made one final attempt to pull away from the Boogieman but his strength had all but fled and he found himself unable to draw upon any ice. The humidity was too high. And that water looked deep.  
  
Pitch suddenly broke out into a laugh of sadistic pleasure. “If this is the fear you give off _now_ , I can’t wait to find out what it’ll be like when I throw you in!”  
  
Jack’s eyes widened. He wouldn’t. Would he? Okay, yeah, he totally would. Too weak to even raise a fist in retaliation, Jack was passed over to one of the nightmares, dangling by his hood. He sent a pitiful glare Pitch’s way as the nightmare carried him out over the centre of the spring.  
  
“Oh, you thought I didn’t know about your fear of drowning?” Pitch asked, almost innocently. “I told you, Jack, I know all your fears.” He turned away, stepping into a shadow, tilting his head back to say one final thing before he disappeared.  
  
“Have a little _fun_ with him.”  
  
Jack gasped as the force holding him up vanished, leaving him to fall down, down into heated water. The heat reached him first, knocking the wind out of him and making his head spin. Then the fear struck. His limbs seized in paralysis, his heart beating so fast he thought it might jump right out of his chest. There was nothing he could do – no way to get himself out. No one even knew he was there! Darkness began to creep across the edges of his vision and he willed it to hurry up and take him. For even darkness would be better than this.  
  
Jack coughed, gasping for breath as he was suddenly hauled out of the water. After experiencing the heat, the humid air was a huge relief, cooling him down, but only marginally. He tilted his gaze, ready to thank his rescuer.   
  
His heart seized in his throat.  
  
Jack wasn’t sure it was possible, but the nightmare smirked, giving him only a split second warning before throwing him up into the air and letting him plummet back down into the water.  
  
Pitch was probably having a field day.

 

* * *

 

 

Something was seriously wrong.   
  
The winter was nowhere near as cold as it should have been and there hadn’t been a single snow day in Burgess all season. That, coupled with the fact that no one had seen Jack Frost in two days, was more than enough cause for concern.   
  
Sandy’s attention was drawn away from the forest around Burgess, where he had been searching for a sign of the wayward youngest Guardian, upwards as familiar rainbow lights streaked across the sky. Had one of the others found Jack? Or was it just North checking in on progress? Or was there actually an emergency?  
  
Face set in determination, Sandy morphed the dream-sand cloud he was drifting on into a plane and soared off towards the Pole.

 

* * *

 

 

Bunny paused in his egg painting, ears twitching as he took in every sound, every motion in the Warren. Something wasn’t right. Slowly he placed his brush down on the grass and gestured for the googies to move back as he stood on his hind legs.  
  
Silently he pulled out his boomerangs and focused on the large tunnel the low rumbling sound seemed to be coming from. The sound grew progressively louder with each passing second until it was like rolling thunder echoing off the rock faces.   
  
Bunny crouched into a defensive position, ready to face this unknown enemy head-on.  
  
A blur of black bolted out from the tunnel, swarming into the clearing. The googies fled, trying in vain to take cover.  
  
Nothing could have prepared the Guardian of Hope for this.

 

* * *

 

 

The tooth fairies twittered in a panic, all talking over each other in an attempt to convey their fear to Tooth.  
  
“Whoa, whoa, slow down,” Tooth placated. “I can’t understand if you all talk at once.”  
  
The fairies fell silent, until one fluttered forward to deliver the message.  
  
Tooth gasped, eyes instantly trained on the sky in time to see an ever growing black smudge on the horizon. Learning from experience, she immediately sent out an order, rounding up all her fairies – each carrying a tooth casket – and flying north as quickly as her wings would carry her.  
  
There was no point trying to fight a battle they couldn’t win.

 

* * *

 

 

Bunny and Tooth were already in the Globe Room by the time Sandy arrived, talking anxiously with North. He looked at them quizzically as he landed, hoping to prompt his colleagues into an explanation.  
  
“We have a problem, mate,” Bunny began.  
  
“The Tooth Palace and the Warren were attacked by nightmares,” Tooth explained, ringing her hands together.  
  
Sandy’s mouth fell open in shock. Nightmares?! But Pitch hadn’t been seen since the staff incident. Why would he suddenly make a move now? Unless… unless it had something to do with Jack’s disappearance.  
  
“What about fairies and teeth?” North asked.  
  
“They spotted the nightmares before they attacked, so we were all able to get out in time,” Tooth replied. “I left them in another room – I hope you don’t mind.”  
  
“No problem, Toothie,” North shrugged. “We are just glad you and the fairies are safe.”  
  
Sandy waved his hands around, trying to gain their attention.   
  
“What is it, Sandy?” Bunny frowned, crossing his arms. North and Tooth likewise turned to him.  
  
Sandy flickered pictures with his sand, silently willing them to understand. A snowflake exaggeratingly dissipating. Nightmares. A question mark.  
  
“You think Pitch is taking advantage of Jack’s disappearance?” North asked.  
  
Sandy nodded eagerly.   
  
“Has there been any sign of him?”  
  
Sandy shook his head, Tooth and Bunny verbally announcing in the negative.  
  
“You don’t think Pitch had anything to do with Jack going missing?” Tooth glanced up through the window at the moon, as if expecting Manny to give them answers.  
  
“If he _did_ have anything to do with it, we’d better hurry up and find ‘im,” Bunny growled. “If Pitch is involved, it’s definitely gonna be bad news for Frostbite.”  
  
“Leaving so soon?”  
  
They all froze as the voice echoed around the Globe Room, sending their hair (or feathers) on edge.  
  
“Pitch, you conniving ratbag! Show yourself!” Bunny raged, drawing his boomerangs and scanning the room for any and all signs of the Boogieman.  
  
North had likewise drawn his swords, looking rather un-jolly. Sandy conjured his dream-sand whips while Tooth, who had no weapons, settled for tightening her fists.  
  
“Well, since you asked so nicely,” came Pitch’s sarcastic remark as he appeared atop the globe.  
  
“What do you want, Pitch?” North asked through gritted teeth.  
  
“Honestly, you’d think we’ve gone over this enough times that you would already know the answer to that,” Pitch said exasperatedly, rolling his eyes.  
  
“Where’s Jack?” Tooth deftly changed the subject back to more important matters. It was clear from her rigid posture that she was restraining herself from lashing out at the man.  
  
“That is the million dollar question, isn’t it?” Pitch smirked. “’Where’s Jack?’ Now let me think…” he brought a hand to his chin, looking for all the world to be seriously pondering over the question. “Let me see… Well, when I last saw him he was in, shall we say, a _heated_ situation?” He proceeded to laugh uproariously like this was the funniest joke he’d ever heard.  
  
But, while it may have been humorous for him, for the Guardians it sent a heavy stone of dread tumbling into the pits of their stomaches.   
  
“Bunny,” North whispered, being careful not to attract Pitch’s attention. “You and Tooth go look for Jack. Sandy and I can handle things here.”  
  
Bunny hesitated for only a moment before nodding, tapping his foot against the ground to open a tunnel. This, of course, was spotted by Pitch, who sent a wave of nightmares out to stop them, but the Guardians of Hope and Memories were long gone before they had a chance.

 

* * *

 

 

Bunny grumbled a few choice words as something hit him over the head as he and Tooth exited the tunnel into the woods around Burgess.   
  
“Are you okay?” Tooth asked, frowning slightly in concern.  
  
“Something hit me,” Bunny muttered, rubbing the sore spot on his head. They both looked around them, eyes falling on a very grubby, yet highly familiar stick.  
  
“Is that…?” Tooth breathed as Bunny lifted the piece of wood off the ground.  
  
“Frostbite’s staff,” Bunny replied absently. “This can’t be good.”  
  
“Pitch said Jack was in a ‘heated situation’, right? You don’t think that means he took him somewhere in summer?” she sounded horrified by her own suggestion, but it was the best lead they had.  
  
“We’d better keep moving.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a request from Mysteryfan17 (from FFN): "I like Pitch out for revenge but now he knows not to mess with Ceres so Fall is out of the question and Jack is obviously able to fight a bit even with a broken staff. He may be bad but he's not that dumb. I'd think he could use the shadows to sneak attack Jack and bring him to a summer/hot area (not knowing Jack's 'odd' friendship) and hold him there, in the heat and keeping the staff away or leaving it behind... even at the lake. Rescue can be your choice. Whoever sees him first. Pitch knows fears and could even use the water against him."


	19. Revenge Served Hot Part II

It was impossible. Summer was covering a whole half of the Earth – stretching from east to west – how were they supposed to find one small spirit in such a large area? And it certainly didn’t help that they weren’t even 100% sure he was _in_ summer in the first place. After all, all they had to go on was a vague remark from Pitch, and it was quite clear they couldn’t trust the man.  
  
They needed to think rationally about this. From what they’d been able to reason from the few words Pitch had spoken back at the Pole, he had definitely done something to Jack. Therefore, the chances that he’d left guards to stop the winter spirit from intervening in the Boogieman’s latest attack were highly likely.  
  
Jack had also been gaining more and more believers as time passed, so to prevent unwanted intervention, Pitch would have had to have left him somewhere where humans didn’t normally go.  
  
The first thought that came to Bunny’s mind was not one he really wanted to think about. A desert. But there were _a lot_ of deserts in the southern hemisphere. Far too many to just pick one and hope for the best.  
  
“I don’t even know where to start,” Tooth said sadly, effectively breaking Bunny from his thoughts as she gazed around the arid landscape.   
  
“I’m thinking a desert,” Bunny relayed his thoughts, watching as Tooth’s expression of horror matched his feelings.  
  
“That doesn’t really narrow things down.”  
  
“Then maybe we should get some help.”  
  
“Who did you have in mind?”

 

* * *

 

 

As it turned out, locating seasonal spirits who _weren’t_ Jack and therefore whom they knew next to nothing about and who didn’t have a small lake/pond/thing that they constantly returned to was harder than the two Guardians on rescue-duty had anticipated.  
  
They didn’t even _know_ where the spirits of spring and autumn went in the off-season, so that left only Lleu. But where was he?  
  
Careful to stay hidden from humans (they were far more likely to be spotted than Jack or even Lleu), Bunny and Tooth jumped from town to town, country to country, in search of the being they hoped would be able to help them. For hours they continued with no results.  
  
“Maybe he’s not in a populated area,” Tooth suggested after their most recent failure.  
  
“A’right,” Bunny grumbled, pushing his ears back with a paw. “Then let’s keep looking. We’re not gonna find either of ‘em if we just stand here.”

 

* * *

 

 

In the end they found him completely accidentally. But, as they say, you generally find what you’re looking for when you stop looking for it. To be precise, they didn’t actually see him. They saw the nightmares, which was pretty much a dead giveaway.   
  
Tooth went into a rage when she saw what was going on.  
  
The nightmares, usually cruel, had reached a new low. The two Guardians watched in horror and disgust from the edge of the canyon-like space as a limp body was hauled out of the water, only to be thrown around a bit before being dumped back in.   
  
And was that… _steam_ coming from the surface?!  
  
Before Bunny could so much as lift a finger to stop her, Tooth held up Jack’s staff menacingly, a cry of rage ripping from her throat.  
  
The nightmares all looked up upon her approach, seemingly forgetting about the winter spirit who had not resurfaced as they faced the new threat. Tooth was relentless. Having no idea how to properly use a staff, much less a branch, she resorted to using it like a blunt dagger or a bludgeon, hitting the black sand horses with more force than Bunny had thought her capable of. It was a rather frightening sight.  
  
Bunny vowed never to get on her bad side.  
  
Quickly recovering from his shock, the Easter Bunny pulled out his boomerangs and joined the fray, throwing a few egg-bombs now and then for added effect.  
  
“Tooth! Jack hasn’t resurfaced!” he called out to her. “I’ll handle these guys.”  
  
Tooth nodded, fluttering out of reach of snapping jaws as she navigated towards the small pond-like body of water.   
  
The nightmares interpreted her attentions and split up; one group staying to deal with Bunny, the other hurrying after Tooth.  
  
Tooth could hold her own in a fight, but against so many with only a stick she didn’t know how to use for defence and with a far more important task to complete, the odds were against her. With another egg-bomb and a thrust of his weapons, Bunny dispatched the last of the nightmares that had remained with him and hurried to aid his colleague.   
  
Tooth quickly forced herself to a stop mid-air as a nightmare burst out in front of her. Recovering from her shock she tightened her grip on the staff and charged out, narrowly avoiding having her wings bitten. Her attack knocked some of the black sand from the horse’s form, but not nearly enough to stop it for good. She dodged trampling hooves, still trying to get past to where Jack had remained in the water.  
  
An unpredicted attack from the side knocked her weapon from her hands and she gasped, watching it clatter on the ground loudly before turning her attention to the newest assailant. She was surrounded and unarmed. Not good.  
  
A familiar battle cry was all the warning the nightmares got before a colourful blast disintegrated the two in front of her while a boomerang came around the side and took out the two behind.  
  
“Thanks, Bunny!” she called out to him as he continued on to chase another.  
  
“Focus on Jack! I’ll cover you!”  
  
Bunny was right. Jack was their number one priority. She had no time to be dealing with nightmares.  
  
The Tooth Fairy hovered over the steaming water, scanning the depths for any sign of their wayward winter spirit. Steam. Steam wasn’t good. Steam meant heat. Which meant that this must be a hot spring. Even less good. Winter and heat did not go well together. She needed to move fast.  
  
Judging herself incapable of locating Jack from above, Tooth made a split second decision. Folding her wings flat against her back she dived down, well aware that she would now be unable to fly. The water was warmer than her preferred temperature and she could only imagine how it must feel to Jack. Her thoughts only pushed her harder to find him.  
  
There! He was floating a little further down, where the light barely penetrated, his eyes closed. Panic gripped at Tooth’s heart and she forced herself to swim deeper until she was able to reach out and grab one of Jack’s limp arms. With all the strength she could muster she kicked her legs, struggling to pull them both back up to the surface.  
  
Bunny was there in an instant, helping her pull the winter spirit up onto the shore. He was bright red – either flushed or burned, it was hard to tell – but he managed to take a breath that quickly dissolved into a coughing fit.  
  
“Let’s get ‘im back to the Pole. I think some cold air will do ‘im good,” Bunny suggested, moving over to pick up Jack’s staff from where it had been abandoned before opening a tunnel.

 

* * *

 

 

“Is that the best you can do?” Pitch taunted as he easily dissolved into darkness before North’s sword could slice him in half.  
  
They were not faring well against the Boogieman. He was stronger than when they’d faced him the last time, but nowhere near the power level he’d been when Jack had been recruited by Manny. Sandy was perhaps the best suited to fighting the man, but North found himself equally missing Bunny’s fierce never-give-up nature, Tooth’s determination, and even Jack’s recklessness. He silently hoped the Guardians of Hope and Memories would be able to find the boy. Wherever he’d gone.  
  
North was drawn back into the fight unfolding before him as a sand whip slammed into the ground to his right, missing its target. The room held too many shadows; it was far too easy for Pitch to jump around and avoid them. It would be so much easier if this fight had occurred outside in the snow.  
  
“Pitch! Show yourself!” North growled, trying to locate the enemy.   
  
Sandy stood at his back, likewise scanning the room.   
  
There! By the fireplace! Swords at the ready, North charged, Sandy floating overhead, striking out with lashes of his dream sand whips. And so the dance began anew.  


 

* * *

 

Jack gasped, his eyes springing open to find… snow? Yep, he was definitely lying half-buried in snow. That was strange; hadn’t he been at a hot spring a moment ago?  
  
“Sweet Tooth?” a hesitant voice called.  
  
Only one person called him that. Jack turned his head to see a very worried, very cold Tooth kneeling by his side.  
  
“Are you okay?”  
  
Ignoring her protests, Jack pulled himself up into a sitting position, resting his head in one hand. “Better than I was a moment ago,” he told her.  
  
“Care to tell us what happened, mate?”  
  
Ah, Bunny was here, too. He looked freezing despite his coat of fur, but his face was creased in worry more so than discomfort.  
  
“Pitch snuck up on me,” Jack said, rolling his shoulder. The burns he’d received from the hot water had mostly faded by now. A few more minutes and they’d be completely gone. “Knocked my staff away before I had the chance to react.”  
  
Speaking of which… Jack’s body went rigid as he remembered the fate of his conduit. “My staff–”  
  
“Is right ‘ere,” Bunny assured him, handing the undamaged stick over to him. It was coated in a layer of frost the moment it came into contact with Jack’s hands.  
  
“So where’s Pitch?” Jack asked, using the staff to help pull himself to his feet. “I have a score to settle.”  
  
“Wait, Jack, you need to rest,” Tooth said worriedly, fluttering upwards so they were at eye level.  
  
“I’m fine,” he held out his arms as if it were clear proof. “Thanks to you guys. Besides, he’s up to something; and whatever it is, it’s not going to be good.”  
  
Looking around, Jack noted that North’s workshop was visible in the distance. They’d obviously brought him close for a reason… but why not closer?  
  
“He’s in the workshop, isn’t he?”  
  
No response. That was as good as a yes. His expression morphing into steely determination, Jack allowed the wind to lift him up and he flew towards the building, a single destination in mind.  
  
Tooth and Bunny were calling out to him and he twisted so he was facing them. “You guys coming or what? I’ve got an idea!”  
  
“What sort of idea?” Bunny called back, bounding across the snow and easily keeping pace with him.  
  
“A fight is what Pitch wants, right? So let’s give it to him… my way.”

 

* * *

 

 

North would never admit it but he was getting tired. He wasn’t as young as he used to be. And while Sandy could float over to wherever Pitch had vanished to, North had to run. And half the time the Boogieman had disappeared again by the time he got there.  
  
North barely managed to hold up his blades in time to block the sand scythe that came crashing down towards him. A golden stream wrapped tightly around the handle and Pitch was swung heavily into the far wall.  
  
“Go easy on the building, Sandy,” North said, eyeing the damage disapprovingly.  
  
Sandy shrugged sheepishly and returned his attention to Pitch, who was pushing himself off the ground.  
  
“You’ll pay for that,” the Boogieman snapped, baring his teeth in a near-growl.  
  
They all froze as something blue-green burst into the room, appearing to stumble through the air, if that was even possible.  
  
“Tooth?” North raised a brow.  
  
The Tooth Fairy in question quickly righted herself, clearing her throat in an attempt to look dignified. She threw a glance back over her shoulder which could have been a glare before settling her gaze on Pitch.  
  
“Um…” she thought for a moment before her face brightened. “What time did the man go to the dentist?” she asked brightly.  
  
They all looked at her like she was insane. Maybe she was. Maybe she’d gotten too excited on a tooth run and had simply hit her head a little too hard on a billboard this time.  
  
“Two thirty!” she exclaimed. No one laughed. “Get it? Two thirty, tooth hurty? Oh come on, guys. Fine, how about this one? What did the dentist see at the North Pole?”  
  
“…Snow?” Pitch guessed, despite himself.  
  
“A molar bear!”  
  
The three who had been interrupted shared a look.  
  
“Man, tough crowd,” Tooth commented.  
  
“Was there… a point to this, Tooth?” North asked. “Did you find Jack?”  
  
“Yep, she was distracting you and buying me some time.”  
  
They all looked up at the rafters to see a grinning Jack Frost staring down at them.  
  
“Jack!” North beamed. “Are you alright?”  
  
“You?!” Pitch spat.  
  
“The one and only,” Jack smirked. With a small gesture he pointed his staff at Pitch and let out a small burst of frost.  
  
Seeing the attack, Pitch quickly melded into the shadows. Jack’s smile didn’t falter.   
  
A cry of pain drew their attention to the other side of the room, where Pitch was shaking his foot, trying to dislodge a mouse trap from his foot.  
  
“That’s what happens when you go scurrying around,” Jack laughed, using his staff to freeze the ground around the Boogieman.  
  
In his struggles, Pitch slipped on the ice, sending him staggering forwards where he tripped over a piece of thin rope stretched taut across his path. The Boogieman fell flat on his face, and even as he began pushing himself upright the movement of the rope was setting off a series of reactions. They all followed the rope with their eyes, watching in horror (Pitch) and amusement (everyone else) as a precariously balanced bucket of… something was tugged downwards, its contents saturating Pitch from head to toe in… was that _honey?_  
  
“Release the elves!” Jack called to the door, which promptly burst open courtesy of Bunny and a swarm of elves hurried into the room.  
  
They caught one sight at Pitch and froze, their little eyes widening.  
  
“N-No!” Pitch cried, scrambling to get back on his feet, but the ice covering the floor was making it near impossible. “Stay back!”  
  
Elves, of course, rarely do as they’re told and bounded towards him, eyeing the honey dripping off him like it was a gift from the heavens.  
  
Pitch yelled in protest, indignation and disgust as he fell prey to the small creatures, who promptly tried to consume as much honey as was physically possible, scooping it up with their hands or just straight out licking his clothes.  
  
Pitch somehow managed to manoeuvre himself into a nearby shadow cast by the control panel of the Globe, disappearing for good without so much as a goodbye.  
  
“And that,” Jack said, gently landing on the ground in front of his family, “is how you deal with a problem my way.”   
  
They all silently vowed never to become a ‘problem’.


	20. Not So Nice

North sighed heavily as he perused the Naughty List. Christmas was just around the corner and there was still so much to be done. He really didn’t have time to be worrying about this, too. But there they were, nine little letters glaring up at him in black ink.  
  
“Is something wrong?” Tooth asked from her seat beside the fire.  
  
She and the other Guardians had been doing their best to help with the Christmas rush whenever they had free time. Bunny wouldn’t be able to start Easter preparations for another month or two, so he was the most regular visitor, while Tooth and Sandy ducked in whenever they got a free moment. Jack, on the other hand, hadn’t been seen much, although this was nothing unusual; it was the middle of winter, after all.  
  
But apparently work wasn’t the only thing he’d been up to.  
  
“Jack is on Naughty List,” North gestured to the long piece of parchment in his hand.  
  
“Again?” Bunny frowned. “I thought you ‘wiped clean the slate’.”  
  
“I did. He’s managed to get back on.”  
  
“Why does that not surprise me?”  
  
“What are you going to do?” Tooth asked, putting down her mug of hot chocolate.  
  
“I don’t know,” North frowned. “Maybe he can redeem himself?”

 

* * *

 

 

There were a number of things Jack Frost had done over his 300 year existence that he regretted. His record on the Naughty List was not one of them. How many people could say they’d been on that list 300 years in a row?   
  
North had ‘wiped clean the slate’ when they’d been trying to convince him to become a Guardian, so now he had to work extra hard to ensure his record wasn’t tarnished. He had a reputation to upkeep.  
  
That was why he was currently sneaking around the Warren. Winter would be fine on its own for a little while and Bunny was busy at the Pole (so was Tooth, and Sandy would be there soon, so he didn’t have to worry about feeling guilty for not helping). He had it all to himself.  
  
It was easy enough to cover the Warren in a blanket of snow, decorating all the trees and little shrubs with fairy lights and baubles.  
  
The egg-golem-things – he honestly wasn’t 100% sure what they were – were watching him closely, but had yet to switch to their angry faces. Bunny had probably told them that he wasn’t a threat. Jack grinned to himself, untangling a string of lights.  
  
“You guys wanna join in?” he asked them, not really expecting a response.  
  
He wasn’t sure what to think when they stepped closer and didn’t so much as try to get away when he started throwing tinsel around them like scarves. Santa hats to top it off and his work was done.  
  
Jack drifted up into the air to get a bird’s eye view of his handiwork and a few shots with his camera. Not bad, if he did say so himself. It looked like he’d torn it straight out of North’s Workshop. Bunny would be _thrilled_.  
  
What was next on the list?

 

* * *

 

 

The elves weren’t helping. That’s what Jack kept telling himself when he rounded them all up into an unused wing of the workshop. North wouldn’t mind if they’d suddenly disappeared. Notice? Yes. Become suspicious? Definitely. Care? Not so much.  
  
They were being strangely obedient, though he wasn’t sure if it was something he should be worried about or not. But he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.  
  
“Alright you guys,” he addressed the mass of elves standing to attention. “We have just under a week to carry out Operation Get-Jack-Back-On-The-Naughty-List, starting with coming up with a better name for said operation.”  
  
An elf near the middle stuck up a hand and waved around crazily. Jack ignored it and paced in front of his troops.  
  
“Are we all clear on what we need to do?”  
  
Countless bells jingled as the elves nodded.  
  
“Then let’s get started.”

 

* * *

 

 

Jack decided he’d better accompany the elves carrying out Operation Pinky-fy. The last thing he needed was for them all to get captured. They were going into the figurative mouth of the beast.  
  
No one was home when they snuck in – something that had been pre-arranged – and they got to work as fast as possible. The elves proved themselves to be pretty good artists as they spray painted murals of happy ponies doing things ponies shouldn’t be capable of doing over the rock walls. Elf Group B spread out rolls of turf to create a lovely grassy floor where Jack began creating pony-shaped ice sculptures.  
  
By the time they were done, Pitch’s creepy lair-cave-hide out was a little girl’s dream. Jack took a few photos and ushered the elves out before the Boogieman returned.

 

* * *

 

 

They regrouped where they’d started and the leaders of each operation handed over their cameras.  
  
“Excellent work, guys,” Jack praised, flicking through the shots. Ceres’ vegetable garden coated in a layer of summer flowers, the batteries taken out of all of Father Time’s modern clocks and the others hidden and set to go off every half hour, the Leprechaun’s gold replaced with chocolate money (which Jack would replace later once Pat had calmed down a little), and the planting of countless fairy-floss trees in the Tooth Palace.  
  
There were, of course, a large number of people he refused to target for a number of reasons. The biggest of which was that he didn’t have a death wish. There were also some, like North, that were far too busy and pranking them would only cause them more problems than they needed. There were others again, like Jack-O, who wouldn’t be around to see his handiwork for so long it would lose its purpose.  
  
That, coupled with the rest of his work over the last week, was probably enough for one year. He contemplated heading to the Globe Room where the others were working and help out, but figured it would be best to lay low for a while.  
  
“And remember,” Jack told the elves as he perched on an open window sill. “If you blab, I’ll turn you into an ice sculpture.”

 

* * *

 

 

Bunny and Tooth had wanted to help Jack get off the Naughty List. Keyword: had. But after visiting their respective homes, that want was gone.  
  
They were less than pleased when Jack finally decided to show his face back at the Pole.  
  
“It’s no wonder you’re on the Naughty List, Frostbite,” Bunny snapped before Jack could say so much as a hello.  
  
“Really, Jack, you were so close this time,” Tooth added.  
  
“I know!” Jack agreed. “Far too close. I’ll have to work harder if I want to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”  
  
The two Guardians just stared at him.  
  
“You mean… you _want_ to be on the Naughty List?” Tooth asked incredulously.  
  
“Yeah,” Jack replied like it was the most obvious thing ever. “I’m not about to break a 300 year record because I became a Guardian. Besides, it’s not like there would have been any reward if I was actually on the Nice List. Speaking of which…” he trailed off as he caught sight of North. “Hey, North, you owe me 300 pieces of coal.”  
  
North looked momentarily flabbergasted. “What could you possibly want 300 pieces of coal for?”  
  
“It’s a good power source,” Jack shrugged.   
  
“If you burn it. With fire,” North said pointedly.  
  
“…Good point.”  
  
The Globe Room door burst open as Phil hurried in, speaking in a rush. North’s expression became unreadable as he listened and finally turned to Jack.  
  
“He says there is angry mob looking for you.”  
  
“Aaaand that’s my cue to leave,” Jack jumped out the nearest window, calling back, “See you guys later!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another request, this time from Seryyth (FFN): "Basically, I had the idea of Jack on the Naughty List... but I can't think of anything yet to explain why he's at the top of the list every year."   
> To which I reply, with hard work and dedication of course XD


	21. Horror-day

Jack stared in horror at the screen, mouth hanging open in a mixture of shock and indignation. Bunny and Tooth bore similar expressions, although Bunny had regained his senses enough to sputter incoherently. North simply raised an eyebrow at what they were watching. In fact, Sandy seemed to be the only one amused by it all.  
  
“What…?” Jack shook his head. “What… I can’t… What?”  
  
“ _Jack Frost, you are hereby charged with 273 counts of attempted upstaging of Santa Claus. You froze a volcano in Hawaii. You made it snow in the Amazon. And you frosted Mexico, sending all the geese north for the winter. You have violated the Legendary Figures Code of Conduct in a manner that is both wilful and malicious.”_  
  
“ _What?_ ” Jack gaped, sparing a quick glance at North, whose eyebrow had risen impossibly high. “I can’t even go _near_ volcanoes, or the Amazon, for that matter. Do we even _have_ a ‘Legendary Figures Code of Conduct?”  
  
“Sounds like somethin’ you’d do, though,” Bunny pointed out, ignoring the glare Jack sent him.  
  
“Also, I’d like to point out that if I _had_ done those things, Mother would not just be standing there telling me about them.”  
  
“ _Excuse me… Did you just accuse me of being skilful and delicious?_ ”  
  
“Oh Manny, no,” Jack groaned, hiding his face in his hands.  
  
“ _Oh, please_.”  
  
“No, no, _no_. Kill me now.”  
  
“ _Guilty as charged!_ ”  
  
“Ugh you should have just killed me,” Jack wailed, burying himself further into his knees so he wouldn’t have to face the abomination before him.  
  
“…He does have your sass,” North shrugged, while Sandy laughed silently.  
  
“It could be worse, Sweet Tooth,” Tooth placed a hand on his shoulder.  
  
“You’re right,” he replied, raising his head. “They could have gotten my gender wrong… or made me look super wimpy,” this last part was said with a smirk as he faced Bunny.  
  
“Don’t even start, mate,” the Pooka warned.  
  
North grabbed the remote and quickly switched off the television.   
  
“That is the last time we watch holiday movies,” Bunny grumbled, getting to his feet and stretching.  
  
“More like horror-day,” Jack mumbled. He silently vowed to destroy every copy of the movie he came across in the future. Grabbing his staff, he moved towards a window.  
  
“Where are you going, Jack?” North asked.  
  
“To cleanse my mind.”

 

* * *

 

 

Even upon later reflection, Jamie Bennett struggled to understand what had happened earlier that afternoon. They’d been watching a Christmas movie on TV when Jack had flown in. They’d invited him to join them, thinking he’d enjoy it.   
  
The look of abhorrent horror that spread across his face as he gazed at the screen, a clear ‘no’, would be ingrained in the boy’s memory for years to come.  
  
And then Jack had frozen the TV before quickly fleeing, muttering something under his breath about mental scars, the words ‘destroy’ and ‘Disney’ coming up alarmingly often. The two children watched him go in bewilderment.  



	22. Of Wayward Kings and Striking Resemblances

Jack laughed joyously as he soared above the town, the wind easily carrying his light form, whistling in his ears all the while. It was evening here, but still he set about settling snow all over. He would guarantee a snow day for the kids the following morning. After all, why would anyone want to be in school when they could be having fun in the snow?  
  
Winter was finally in full-swing and Jack intended to make every second count.  
  
Jack landed nimbly on the powerlines, only to freeze the cables as he ran along before jumping the distance to a nearby rooftop. Snow had started to fall steadily from the sky, dark clouds blocking out most of the stars. But it was worth it. And the kids would have a great start of the season.  
  
“Do my eyes deceive me or is that Jack Frost?”  
  
Jack paused on the edge of the roof, half-way through preparing to volt to a large tree. The voice was familiar, but not one he’d heard in a while. He spun around, searching through the lamp-lit night for the source.  
  
“Up here!”  
  
Jack followed the voice to a small tree, easily spotting two figures perched casually on a thin branch. The taller of the two, a brunette pixie, was watching him with sparkling green eyes and a smug smile that didn’t quite mask the obvious delight he was feeling. Nestled closely beside him, a tiny hand clutching the first pixie’s shirt, was a smaller, feminine pixie with her red hair, stereotypically, in a pixie cut.  
  
Jack broke into a beaming grin as he recognised him.  
  
“Story?” he gaped, barely able to believe what he was seeing.  
  
“The one and only,” Story mock-bowed. “It’s been a while.”  
  
‘A while’ was a huge understatement. It had been years since Jack had seen the Pixie King.   
  
“Where have you been?” Jack asked, allowing the wind to scoop him up and move him closer.  
  
“I only know bits and pieces,” Story shrugged, his smile slipping and his eyes going cold. “But I do know Pitch is behind it.”  
  
Jack frowned. Pitch hadn’t been a problem for a while now – to the Guardians, at least – the thought that he’d still been a threat and they hadn’t known about it was unsettling.  
  
“He manipulated me,” Story continued. “Tricked me into using my powers to spread fear. I managed to get away, and mostly managed to suppress the Fearlings, but they’re still on me. I can feel them, but I don’t know where they are. As I am now, I can’t use my powers.”  
  
Jack’s frown turned into an angry glare which he directed at the ground. Pitch had no sense of boundaries. The next time he saw him, Jack swore to make him regret his actions. In the meantime, though…  
  
“The Fearlings are suppressing your powers, right?”  
  
A nod.  
  
“So, then, if we can find a way to get rid of them, you should be able to go back to normal?”  
  
“It’s not that easy,” Story sighed. “Believe me, I’ve tried. It takes a lot more than will power and hope to remove Fearlings.”  
  
Jack bit his lip, thinking hard. There had to be a way to remove them. The proverbial light bulb flickered on.  
  
“What about Sandy? I’ve seen him turn Nightmares into good dreams. Maybe he can do the same with the Fearlings.”  
  
“Nightmares and Fearlings are very different, Jack. For one, Fearlings aren’t made of tainted dream sand.”  
  
“Well, there’s gotta be a way.”  
  
“I’m sure Pitch would know – he’s the one who put them there, after all. But I’m more likely to get the Easter Bunny to admit Christmas is better than convince Pitch to release his hold on me.”  
  
“Maybe we won’t have to convince him,” Jack smirked, glancing at the houses below them.

 

* * *

 

 

They waited until night had once and truly fallen, the time when even most of the adults were asleep, before they moved into action; mucking around in the fresh snow while they waited. The plan was simple – all they had to do was find a Nightmare and follow it back to where Pitch was hiding these days. Then they would ‘persuade’ him to free Story. Simple.  
  
Heh. If only.  
  
Actually finding a Nightmare proved itself to be harder than they’d expected. Pitch’s defeat at the hands of the Guardians and the kids of Burgess had been more successful than they’d thought. But, like Pitch had said, there would _always_ be fear.  
  
By the time they thought they’d found one, Sandy’s dream sand would float in through the window and turn the Nightmare back into a good dream. It almost reached the point of Jack going out to find the Sandman and asking him to stop for five minutes at least. Not that the man would agree. But it was for a good cause! And he’d be sure to repay the poor kid with the best snow day ever.  
  
The three of them skittered past window after window, giving the sleeping children a brief glance to check for a Nightmare before moving on to the next one.  
  
Jack halted in front of a window, so into the rhythm of checking and continuing, that he barely registered what he was looking at before the wind carried him off again. He froze, mid-way to the next window, and spun back around, urging the wind to retrace his path as quickly as possible. His jaw dropped open at what he saw.  
  
“Story!” he whisper-yelled, craning his head around in an attempt to spot the pixie. “Story!”  
  
The pixie in question appeared upon a nearby rooftop. Jack motioned him over with a frantic hand gesture.  
  
“What is it?” Story asked, hovering at the winter spirit’s side.  
  
“Look,” Jack breathed, not tearing his eyes from the window.  
  
There was what could only be described as a glowing boy standing before the bed of a sleeping girl. They watched as he stabbed the tip of his crystalline daggered staff into a forming Nightmare, obliterating it in unimaginably bright light.  
  
Intrigued, and partially blinded, Jack pushed open the window and he and the two pixies slipped inside.  
  
The glowing boy looked up at them in shock, taking a hesitant step backwards. He didn’t look very old – around the same age (in appearance) as Jack himself, with white hair – some strands longer than others – and pale green eyes. He was rather gangly and was dressed in what appeared to be armour.   
  
“Whoa,” Jack breathed. “This is creepy.”  
  
It was like looking at himself – apart from a number of small differences.   
  
“Who are you?”  
  
The glowing boy seemed as confused as Jack was. “Nightlight,” he managed, his voice barely a whisper, looking rather bemused.  
  
“I’m Jack Frost, and this is Story,” he gestured to the pixie. “And his friend who I have yet to learn the name of.”  
  
“Her name is Aetha,” Story said, looking back at Jack.  
  
Nightlight looked from pixie to winter spirit and nodded.  
  
“So, uh, Nightlight,” Jack glanced quickly at the little girl who remained blissfully unaware of what was happening around her. “How did you do that? With the Nightmare, I mean.”  
  
Nightlight followed his line of sight before raising his spear, displaying a warm glow that travelled from his body to the crystal where it intensified.  
  
“The light, huh?”  
  
Nightlight’s nod was confirmation enough.  
  
“Do you… Are you able to use it to get rid of Fearlings, as well?”  
  
Story turned sharply to stare at Jack, quickly picking up on the youngest Guardian’s train of thought.  
  
Nightlight, apparently, didn’t. He looked even more confused than before, but nodded all the same.  
  
“Do you think you could do me a huge favour?”  
  
Nightlight raised an eyebrow in questioning, a small smile on his face.  
  
“See, my friend here’s been corrupted by Fearlings and they’re stopping him from using his powers. I was wondering if you’d, you know, help him get rid of them?” Jack shrugged. “I mean, if you’re fighting the Nightmares, you can’t be sided with Pitch, right?”  
  
At the mention of Pitch, Nightlight’s expression became hard. He turned his gaze on Story, as if trying to locate the Fearlings by sight alone. Whatever was running through his mind, he seemed to come to a decision. His serious expression melted away into a warm smile that seemed far more at home on his friendly face.   
  
Slowly, the glowing boy stepped around the bed towards them, gesturing for Story to move closer. He looked over every inch of the pixie, trying to identify where the Fearlings were hiding. After a moment he shrugged helplessly.  
  
“You can’t find them?” Jack voiced the other boy’s thoughts. “They have to be there, though.”  
  
Nightlight bit his lip, his face scrunching in thought. He seemed to find an idea, as his whole face brightened. Carefully setting aside his spear, he gently cupped his hands, using them to scoop the tiny Pixie King out of the air. Nightlight nodded, as if to ask if Story was ready.  
  
The pixie murmured something to Aetha, and she fluttered over to sit on Jack’s shoulder, albeit hesitantly.  
  
“I’m ready,” Story told the glowing boy, even as his face betrayed his confusion.  
  
The glow around Nightlight’s hands steadily grew brighter until it was like he was holding a ball of light. Story’s miniscule form was barely distinguishable from within the white.  
  
They all jumped back as black liquid shadow flung itself away from the base of Story’s wings, desperate to escape the burning light. As soon as Story was free, Nightlight released him, swiftly grabbing his spear and holding it at the ready.  
  
Jack likewise tightened his grip on his staff, watching the Fearlings as they swarmed around the room.  
  
“What the- Are those Fearlings?” Jack asked, his eyes wide. In all his 300 or so years he’d never seen anything like them before.  
  
The Fearlings lunged, as if in an attempt to possess one of the four creatures in the room. Jack reacted more out of instinct than anything, blasting the living shadows and freezing them solid. Even frozen they were creepy. Far creepier than any of the Nightmares.  
  
Nightlight frowned, hefting his spear. The crystalline tip glowed brighter until it was like a beacon in the darkness and he plunged it into the mass of ice and fear. Much like the girl’s Nightmare, the Fearlings were easily obliterated within seconds.  
  
They all stood in silence for a few moments, staring at where the Fearlings had been but now only flecks of ice remained.  
  
“So that happened,” Jack muttered, almost to himself. He jerked his head up to face Story, who happily accepted Aetha back at his side. “You okay now?”  
  
Story opened his mouth to speak but no words escaped him. He sighed, looking away for a moment before meeting Jack’s gaze with a smile. He nodded, clearly ecstatic at being completely free again, even if it came with consequences. The pixie turned to Nightlight and bowed his thanks.  
  
“Yeah, that was incredible,” Jack added. “We owe you big time.”  
  
Nightlight simply shook his head, much to say they didn’t need to repay him, but Jack would be sure to do so anyway.  
  
“So, Story, you gonna head back to your forest? I bet you’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”  
  
Story grinned; it had been a long time since he’d been home. He made as if to fly back out the window but hesitated, looking back over his shoulder at the two white-haired immortal boys.  
  
“Don’t worry,” Jack reassured him. “I’ll be sure to come visit once you’ve settled in again. Maybe I’ll even bring Nightlight.”  
  
Story smiled and nodded once more before zipping out into the darkness.  
  
“So, Nightlight,” Jack said conversationally, turning his attention to the glowing boy. “You sure we’re not related?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Request from Seryyth (FFN). This features Seryyth's OC Storyteller (the pixie king). If the character interests you, feel free to hop over to FFN and check out some of Seryyth's work~


	23. Black and White

“What goes together better than cold and dark?”  
  
Jack looked up at the frozen sand sculpture, dark spikes jutting out towards the sky as if to impale it. Cold and dark. It certainly had a nice ring to it.  
  
“We can make them believe,” Pitch continued, oblivious to Jack’s internal musing. “We’ll give them a world where everything, everything is–”  
  
“Pitch Black?” Jack cut across. Yes, cold and dark had a nice ring to it, but it wasn’t one he wanted to be a part of. He wanted to be seen, yes, to be believed in. But it was one thing to be loved and to bring smiles to the faces of the kids he played with, another to destroy that happiness and replace it with all consuming fear. No. He wanted nothing to do with that.  
  
Pitch hesitated, as if realising his mistake before quickly adding, “And Jack Frost, too. They’ll believe in both of us.”  
  
It was too late to fix the little slip up, and they were both aware of it.  
  
“No, they’ll fear both of us,” Jack countered. “And that’s not what I want. Now for the last time,” Jack snapped, turning and walking away, “leave me alone.”  
  
Pitch stared after his retreating form, his expression a mixture of confusion and hurt. “Very well,” he relented, the moment of weakness passing. He would not put himself on the line like this again. “You want to be left alone? Done. But first…” his voice trailed off suggestively as he reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the Tooth Fairy’s cretins.  
  
Baby Tooth chirped sadly, instantly gaining Jack’s attention.  
  
“Baby Tooth!” he cried, charging forward, only to halt as the Boogieman’s grip tightened around the tiny fairy.  
  
“The staff, Jack!” Pitch ordered. “You have a bad habit of interfering. Now hand it over, and I’ll let her go.”  
  
Baby Tooth twittered her refusal, pleading with Jack not to give the man what he wanted. But what else could he do? When it came down to it, Baby Tooth was far more precious than his staff, even despite how important it was to him. He treasured his staff, but he treasured her more.  
  
Jack hesitated for a fraction of a second before moving to hand over the curved stick. And froze. He blinked, as if not sure what he was seeing was real, but the black smudge steadily zooming towards them was still there.  
  
Pitch raised a brow, his free hand stretched outwards for the staff. Apparently he hadn’t noticed. Jack felt a smirk spread across his face, enjoying the frown that settled over Pitch’s.  
  
“You asked me what goes together better than cold and dark,” Jack said, looking the taller man right in the eyes. “How about black and white?”  
  
Pitch opened his mouth to retort but the words died on his lips as a loud, angry squawk pierced the air. Surprised, he spun on his heel in time to see a flock of penguins shooting off an ice patch like a ramp to fly the remaining short distance between them and where the man was standing. He barely registered the fact that he’d let go of the fairy before they were upon him, sharp beaks nipping at whatever part of him they could reach and chattering furiously Manny knows what in their strange penguin language.  
  
Jack quickly plucked a disorientated Baby Tooth from the air, checking her small body for injuries. “You okay, Baby Tooth?”  
  
The fairy nodded and perched herself on the winter spirit’s shoulder, turning her attention to the rather comical scene playing out before them. Despite the situation, Jack couldn’t help but laugh. It would seem he was never truly as alone as he’d thought.  
  
When the penguins deemed they’d tortured the King of Nightmares enough they slowly drifted towards their adopted winter spirit, chattering to him excitedly.  
  
“Yeah, I did see,” Jack laughed in response to their child-like glee. They looked for all the world like they were seeking his approval. “Very nice work, might I say.”  
  
Pitch rose uneasily to his feet, a sound somewhere between a groan and a growl escaping him. He had definitely seen better days. At the motion, the penguins moved to stand protectively in front of Jack, eyes narrowed at Pitch, their whole body language daring the man to make another move against their beloved winter spirit.  
  
“What, did you think I was talking about us when I said ‘black and white’?” Jack crossed his arms. “The Guardians may not want me, but that doesn’t mean I’m not wanted; as you can plainly see.”  
  
The penguins backed up his claims with menacing growl-like chirps.  
  
Pitch narrowed his eyes at the boy, muttering something unsuitable for the ears of children before disappearing into the dark shadows of the chasm beside them.  
  
“That’s what I thought.”

The penguins instantly spun around, nudging Jack with their beaks in a long awaited greeting.  
  
“Thanks, you guys,” Jack smiled, plopping down on the snow and allowing them to clamber over him. Baby Tooth began an unfathomable conversation with one of them.  
  
One of the older females shoved her head into the hood of his jumper, ignoring his protests, and snatched the tooth casket with interest. The action garnered the attention of the others and they all started trying to push their way over for a better look. Jack deftly snatched the box before one of them could accidentally swallow it.  
  
Baby Tooth hopped down from his shoulder, placing her tiny hands on the end of the casket and looking up at him imploringly. Jack glanced between the two, unsure. He had wanted for so long to see his memories, to learn why he was there. But now that the answers were right in front of him he was hesitating. Did he really want to know? What if they didn’t turn out to be what he’d been hoping for?  
  
A nod from Baby Tooth was all the reassurance he needed. With a deep breath, Jack pressed the glistening lid of the tooth casket, allowing himself to be enveloped in memories, comforted in the knowledge that whatever happened, he would always have someone (a lot of someones, in fact) by his side who cared for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Yup. They're back. And will probably be again. This is, as you've probably already guessed, an AU of sorts of what might have happened if there had been a little interference in this scene...


	24. Re-birthday

To say Jack was confused to see Jamie sitting there in the snow, legs crossed and slightly hunched over between two snow-free tombstones, was an understatement. The winter spirit himself hadn’t planned on the impromptu visit, but somehow found he couldn’t stay away – not after finally knowing the truth after 300 years.  
  
Jamie hadn’t yet noticed his presence, his back still to the winter spirit as he fiddled with what appeared to be a bouquet of hand-picked flowers. He’d really gone for the whole shebang, huh? Strange as it sounded, Jack felt like he was intruding on something explicitly personal. Fighting off the feeling – because honestly, the idea was ridiculous – he made to move over to where the boy was sitting but paused when Jamie’s voice reached his ears.  
  
“I guess normally I should say ‘I’m sorry for your loss’,” he said, his head turned slightly to face the tombstone on the left. “But while I’m sad that you lost him, if you didn’t he wouldn’t be here now… I guess that’s kind of selfish, huh?”  
  
Jamie turned back fully to the tombstone on the right, gently resting the bouquet on the snow before it. “I feel kind of silly for coming,” he continued. “I mean, technically you’re not dead, right?”  
  
Jack struggled to maintain dominance over his now watering eyes as he watched the scene playing out before him. He liked to think that his family had come to visit his empty grave now and then when they were still alive, but since then the place hadn’t received much love; they’d set up a new site and eventually there was no one left who was close enough to the people laid here to rest to bother coming to visit. Heck, _he_ nearly hadn’t bothered coming. And yet here was a twelve year old boy 300 years later, sitting in the cold and the snow, talking to a tombstone and the remnants of his sister.  
  
“They say ‘happy birthday’ on birthdays,” Jamie said, pulling Jack from his thoughts. “But I think ‘happy death-day’ is a little insensitive.”  
  
He couldn’t watch anymore. Jack’s steps were near silent as he closed the distance between them and plonked himself down heavily next to Jamie.  
  
“Jack!” Jamie visibly startled at his sudden appearance, his face flushing in what was probably embarrassment. “How long have you been here?”  
  
“Long enough,” Jack forced himself to reply, thankful that his voice was steady despite the emotional turmoil roiling around inside him. What had he done to deserve this kid?  
  
Jamie was staring at him, trying to be subtle but failing miserably.  
  
“I didn’t even know you knew about this place,” Jack said quietly when the silence and Jamie’s piercing gaze started to become uncomfortable.  
  
“I did some research when I was making my family tree,” Jamie explained. “It told me where the… where the gravesite was. I figured to would still be here.”  
  
Jack nodded, not trusting his voice. “There’s no body, you know,” he said after a time. He wasn’t sure what had possessed him to say that; maybe it was an attempt to make the situation lighter, but from the look on Jamie’s face, he obviously hadn’t gotten the point across. “I mean, I’m right here,” he gestured to himself, forcing a smile. “So there can’t be.”  
  
Jamie, appearing slightly flustered, awkwardly grabbed the bouquet and held it out to him. “I… uh, I got these for you.”  
  
Jack stared at them for a long moment while Jamie shifted uncomfortably under the scrutiny. He knew he wasn’t alone anymore – that he was part of a family – but right then it felt like the first time all over again. The first time in his long existence that someone had genuinely cared about him. The first time Jamie had seen him. The emotions had become too strong for Jack to properly control anymore but he found he didn’t care. The first tears slipped down his cheeks, little frozen beads disappearing into the snow. With only a shaky breath for warning, Jack threw himself at his great, great, great whatever nephew, wrapping his arms tightly around the boy. Jamie, at first stiffening in shock at the sudden movement, returned the embrace. If he noticed the frozen tears dropping onto his coat or the way Jack shook every now and then he said nothing of it.  
  
“Thanks, Jamie,” Jack murmured when he finally pulled away. “Really; it means a lot.”  
  
Jamie smiled, albeit sadly.  
  
“Why are we sitting here moping like a couple of weeping willows?” Jack jumped up, feeling the need to lighten the mood. Jamie looked at him in mild confusion. “I’m clearly not dead, so there’s no point mourning.” He extended a hand and pulled Jamie to his feet. Leaning in, he conspiratorially added, “More importantly, it’s also my re-birthday.”  
  
Jamie’s face split into a grin.  
  
“I don’t know about you, but I could definitely go for a snowball fight.”  
  
“I’ll go get the others!” Jamie announced, running off in the general direction of the town. “I think I have enough pocket-money for a cake, too!”  
  
Jack smiled fondly after the boy, giving him a few seconds head-start before letting the wind carry him after him. “Race you!” he called as he shot past.  
  
“Hey, no fair!”


	25. Holiday Spirit

It was a completely unproductive meeting, not that that was anything new, and apparently Jack wasn’t the only one to think so. Sandy, seated beside him, was happily snoozing away, and Tooth was flittering about on the other side of the room animatedly ordering her fairies in their tasks.  
  
To be fair, it hadn’t started out as a waste of time – they’d actually had news this time. Tooth had reported, much to her distress, that the one of the major ‘cavity’ seasons had arrived, which when translated into something a little more important, meant that it was the time of year when Pitch would be at his strongest (and therefore most likely to try something). Jack had tried to tell them that they had nothing to worry about but before he’d even got half a sentence out someone made a passing comment about holidays and prompted another round of Christmas vs. Easter banter. Jack honestly couldn’t even remember what had been said.   
  
After Sandy had dozed off, Jack couldn’t bring himself to bother trying to pay attention anymore and had let his mind wander.  
  
“What do you think, Frostbite?”  
  
Jack was snapped back to the present by a slightly irritated Australian-accented, overgrown rabbit.  
  
“Wha?” he mumbled unintelligibly.  
  
Bunny sighed in exasperation. “Which holiday is better?” the glare that accompanied his words practically _dared_ him to say Christmas. Jack almost wanted to just to spite him.  
  
In the end, though, it wasn’t a hard decision. “Oh, well that’s easy.”  
  
Bunny and North leaned forward in their seats in anticipation.  
  
“Halloween.”  
  
“What?!” the two holiday icons cried in unison.  
  
“You can’t be serious, mate!”  
  
“Bah! Christmas is much more important than Halloween!”  
  
“Well, I’ll admit it’s not overly important in terms of children believing,” Jack granted, “but I stand by my decision.”  
  
Bunny was looking at him like he’d betrayed him.  
  
“Hmm, is Halloween today,” North pointed out, having seemingly forgotten all about their argument.  
  
“So?” Bunny raised a brow.  
  
“We should do something.”  
  
“What are we doing?” Tooth asked, rejoining the group. She gently nudged Sandy awake with her elbow.  
  
“Why?” Bunny gaped. “We’ve _never_ done anything for Halloween.”  
  
“Because we are family and family do things together on holidays; does not matter that is not important one,” North explained.  
  
Jack fidgeted awkwardly in his seat. “Uh… I’m gonna have to take a raincheck.”  
  
Four sets of eyes settled on him.  
  
“What?” he frowned under the scrutiny. “I already have plans.”  
  
“You have plans,” Bunny echoed sceptically.  
  
“Yes,” Jack huffed indignantly. “Just cause you guys never celebrate it, doesn’t mean I don’t.”  
  
“Um, guys, what about the Pitch problem?” Tooth cut across, trying to bring the topic back on track.  
  
“As I was _trying_ to say before,” Jack sent a meaningful glance at North and Bunny, “Pitch isn’t going to be a problem tonight, trust me.”  
  
“How can you be so sure?”  
  
“Tradition. He may be more powerful tonight than any other night of the year, but he won’t be actively scaring kids – he’ll leave that to the Nightmares. Trust me; we have nothing to worry about. Just be sure to give them so good dreams, Sandman, and they’ll be fine.”  
  
Sandy nodded in affirmation.  
  
Bunny opened his mouth to ask ‘what tradition’ but was cut off as all the lights went out, rendering them all in darkness.  
  
The five Guardians sat in silent stupor for several seconds while the event slowly processed in their minds.  
  
North’s ‘hmm’ broke the silence. “Strange; there should be nothing wrong with bulbs and all wires were checked recently.”  
  
A bright golden elf appeared presumably above where Sandy was sitting.  
  
“Is possible.”  
  
“Does anyone have a light?” Bunny grumbled.  
  
As if waiting for this exact cue, a line of small blue flame-like lights flickered into existence, leading out of the Globe Room and around the corner.  
  
“I take it back, no light is fine.”  
  
“Are those will-o-the-wisps?” Tooth asked.  
  
“Well, you know what they say about will-o-the-wisps,” Jack said casually, walking towards the trail with his staff hung carelessly across his shoulders.  
  
“Oi, you wouldn’t have anything to do with this would you, mate?” Bunny came to walk beside him. It was phrased as a question but from his tone of voice it sounded like he’d already come to a conclusion.  
  
“You’re kidding, right?” Jack looked at him (well, what he could see of him in the dim blue light) with a mix of a deadpan and amusement. “Do you honestly think the wisps would listen to me?”  
  
“Fair point.”  
  
Jack wasn’t sure, and he _had_ brought it on himself, but he couldn’t help but feel he’d just been insulted.  
  
As a group they moved down the hallway, letting the wisps guide them… right into a something thin that clung to them, instantly turning them all into kung-fu masters, which only served to get them more covered and tangled.  
  
“ _Please_ tell me this isn’t a spider web,” Jack groaned, tugging on the hand holding his staff in an attempt to free it from where it was suspended in the surprisingly strong web.  
  
And then the wisps disappeared.  
  
“Just perfect,” Bunny’s sarcasm hinted to his position somewhere on Jack’s left.  
  
“Ugh, my wings are stuck,” Tooth complained. “This web is huge!”  
  
“Makes you wonder about the spider that lives in it…” North contributed.  
  
Tooth’s tugging increased in fervour.  
  
“Stop breathing on me, rabbit,” Jack jerked his shoulder in a futile attempt to free himself.  
  
“I’m nowhere near you, mate!”  
  
“Sandy?”  
  
A dream sand cross flashed in his peripheral vision.  
  
“North?”  
  
“Is not me, Jack.”  
  
“Well, it can’t be Tooth; I can feel her panicking way over there.”  
  
The tugging of the web stopped at this, and Jack could practically _feel_ the look of horror she was sending him.  
  
“Sandy, light!” she cried.  
  
A wave of dream sand sprang to life, spilling gentle light around them and casting long shadows across the walls. Hesitantly, the Guardians (except Jack, who couldn’t move his head) lifted their gazes to the space directly above Jack.   
  
There were several sharp intakes of breath.  
  
“Jack,” Tooth said quietly, eyes wide. “Don’t make any sudden movements.”  
  
Jack raised a brow, his eyes darting upwards as he tried to see what had the others so shaken, but couldn’t make out anything other than the white of his hair. He turned to Sandy, directing the unspoken question to the only one he could actually see.  
  
The Sandman locked eyes with him, seemingly understanding. Biting his lip, an image began to slowly form above him; a perfect sand-replica of Jack and the position of the thing above him. Jack’s eyes widened as the implication sunk in.   
  
“Oh come on,” he rolled his eyes. “That’s not even a spider!”  
  
Sandy gave him a look to let him know he was dead serious.   
  
“Oh,” Jack managed.  
  
The web started moving; they could feel the light tugging of the fine strings. Sandy’s heart clenched in horror as the thing began closing the distance between itself and its target.  
  
“Um, guys,” Jack said, his voice tinged with worry. “I could probably use a little help right now.” He pulled his head forward with all the strength he could muster, gasping in light shock as it tore free from the sticky web. Now partially free, he craned his neck upwards, locking eye-to-eye with what could only be described as a zombie.  
  
Sandy couldn’t say he was happy about the development. If anything, he felt it was probably better that the winter spirit had stayed exactly as he had been. Well, not exactly; it was probably better that he was as far away from the thing above him as was physically possible, but in this case he meant that Jack hadn’t seen what they had already realised.  
  
The corpse was missing an eye, and most of its hair, several teeth, half of one arm… well, the list went on. Its skin was an unhealthy blue-ish tinge, accentuated by the bleak lighting. It was perched on the web like a three legged spider, apparently not caught up as they were, which it proved as it began slowly dragging itself down towards him.  
  
“Ah, hey,” Jack said to it, obviously trying to cover the panic in his voice. “Can’t we talk about this?” he gave a hard pull with the arm holding his staff, trying to pry it free, but to no avail. “I mean, technically speaking we’re not all that different; you could describe me as a reanimated corpse, too, if you thought about it… We could be considered brothers. Or cousins. Distant relatives?”  
  
The others winced at the comparison.  
  
“You know, except for the whole ‘brain eating’ thing. And the slow walking. And the missing limbs bit. And I’m not blue. And I didn’t come out of the ground. And no acid or anything was involved.” He was rambling, he realised, and clamped his mouth shut.  
  
The zombie apparently either didn’t care or hadn’t understood a word, continue its approach unfazed.  
  
“Or… not,” there was a second’s pause. “I’m… going to scream now.”  
  
One rotting hand stretched out towards him, reaching to grab hold of the boy’s head. Sandy couldn’t do anything to help without the free use of his hands, and so was resigned, like the others, to watch in trepidation at what could possibly be the end of their youngest member. It was hard to tell, really, what would happen. What Jack had said was true – he was technically a kind of zombie. Would anything change?  
  
Adrenaline seemed to come to the rescue, however, the web around Jack’s body freezing so that a single lurch was all it took for Jack to break free. The winter spirit jumped forward, spinning around the second his feet touched the ground and sending a blast of ice at his assailant, effectively trapping the zombie to the web. He then promptly pulled the others free.  
  
“Would someone please explain to me what a zombie is doing here?” Bunny asked, his voice rising in pitch.  
  
“I’d like to know _how_ it got here,” North frowned, looking as though he were the least freaked out of the lot of them.  
  
Tooth zipped over to Jack, checking him over for injuries. “Are you okay?”  
  
“Yeah, fine,” he replied in a shaky voice.  
  
The zombie struggled to free itself, moaning unintelligibly. Sandy formed a ball of dream sand in his palm and hurled it at the thing. At least with it asleep they could take a moment to calm down.  
  
You know, or not.  
  
They all jumped as deep, echoing laughter reverberated around them, seeming to shake their very bones. The poor light the dream waves gave off spread dark shadows across the walls, which slowly started to morph into proper shapes. Heads, bodies, clawed hands, sinister expressions. The shadows stretched out their lanky arms, reaching for them even as they failed to gain any real form.  
  
A sharp cry had them turning to Jack, who was trying to jump away from a long shadow climbing up his leg.  
  
“Jack!” three voices cried simultaneously, the fourth of their number merely able to express himself in the form of a golden exclamation mark.  
  
Where the shadows crawled, Jack’s body began to ice over, forming jagged shards across his skin, his clothes. He turned to them with nothing short of panic, a silent plea for help reflected in his eyes.  
  
Bunny whipped out a boomerang and tried smacking it against the solid frost, trying to break the kid out, but the ice only grew stronger and quicker until in only mere moments it had already reached Jack’s middle. The Pooka moved back quickly as the shadows reached out their clawed hands for him, barely managing to escape.  
  
The dark shapes were looming in on all sides, quickly making progress towards them. It would only be a matter of seconds before they shared Jack’s fate.  
  
Jack, now only one arm and his head free, slammed the butt of his staff down against the ground, sending out a layer of frost that attacked the shadows, freezing them in place. Then the ice completely covered him, leaving him like an ice sculpture.  
  
“Jack,” Tooth gasped out, her eyes filled with tears. “There has to be something we can do!”  
  
Darkness fell again, Sandy’s dream sand extinguished. When light returned once more, it was in the form of the wisps, leading them on in the same direction they had been before. Only something had changed.  
  
“Where… where did the web and the zombie go?”  
  
“And where’s Jack?”  
  
Bunny’s question had them all turning sharply to where the frozen winter spirit had been, only to find there was no sign of him; it was like he had never even been there in the first place. A chilling wind blew, its echo like the moans of the dead.  
  
“Should we keep going?” North asked quietly.  
  
There wasn’t really much else they could do, so the four remaining Guardians resigned themselves to whatever fate the will-o-the-wisps had in mind for them.  
  
They ended up in the main part of the workshop, only it was barren of life. The yetis were nowhere in sight, and even the elves were missing. Half-finished toys lay scattered across workbenches, looking ghoulish in the dim. No wait; it wasn’t the lack of light that was scary.  
  
They were _moving._  
  
Dolls with painted faces pushed themselves upright, their unseeing eyes locking onto them and their unmoving lips seeming to grin devilishly. Toy robots whirred to life, their lights blinking red and their monotone voices all the more haunting in the unsettling silence. Bears, remote control cars, heck even doll houses gained mobility, moving jerkily towards them on legs, wheels, or just shuddering along corner by corner.  
  
Tooth whimpered, dropping to land lightly on her feet beside Bunny, clinging tightly to his arm. Bunny reached up and laid a hand over hers in a silent show of comfort.  
  
“What do we do, North?” he asked, his voice low as they all stepped back towards the doorway.  
  
Before the Russian had the chance to speak the wisps disappeared again and for what seemed like the umpteenth time in the last hour, everything went black.  
  
The Guardians held their breath, not daring to move as they strained their ears for any motion. But as seconds ticked by into minutes, it looked as though the toys were no longer out to get them.  
  
Maybe they were okay?  
  
“Do you think… everything’s–” Tooth’s query quickly morphed into a high pitch scream as something cold landed heavily on her shoulder.  
  
The lights blared back into existence overhead and the Guardians shielded their eyes at the sudden change.  
  
Two sets of laughter drew their attention. They were no longer alone in the room.  
  
Jack stood beside Tooth, his hand resting on her shoulder as he struggled to regain his composure, practically doubled over in his mirth. Another person, a young man, sat on the edge of one of the workbenches, wiping a tear from one of his luminous yellow eyes.  
  
“Oh man,” Jack wheezed, “you should have seen your faces!”  
  
Tooth pulled away, scowling at him. “That wasn’t funny, Jack!”  
  
“I thought you said you had nothing to do with this,” Bunny snapped.  
  
North and Sandy likewise scowled, but sighed in relief all the same.  
  
“I didn’t!” Jack told them, recovering. “But I figured out what was going pretty quick and, well… how could I resist?”  
  
“Almost fooled me, too,” the black-haired stranger smirked (although, judging from the glowing pumpkin lantern on his head, it wasn’t hard to take a guess to his identity). “Hello, Guardians,” he mock bowed. “My name is Jack-O-Lantern, spirit of Halloween.”  
  
Still a little shaken from the whole ordeal, the Guardians merely nodded, muttering a return greeting.  
  
“What are you even doing here?” Jack asked, ignoring the occasional glare sent his way (he had a feeling they were going to get him back for this). “You normally don’t come out until tonight.”  
  
“Eh, it’s night somewhere in the world,” the Halloween spirit shrugged. “Besides, I had to make sure you were still going to come even with your new shiny promotion.”  
  
Jack stared at him incredulously. “Of course I was going to come.”  
  
Tooth gasped as the zombie from earlier hobbled into the room, moving steadily towards Jack.  
  
The others turned at her shock, easily identifying what she had already seen. Bunny pulled out his boomerangs; just because it had turned out to be a trick (which he had kinda expected) didn’t mean he was going to take any chances. But, to their shock, Jack went over to meet the corpse half-way, raising his hand in high-five.  
  
“Hey, Bob,” he grinned. “Great acting back there.” He winced when the force of the gesture caused Bob’s hand to go flying backwards, landing on the floor with a thud. The Guardians shuddered. “Oops, sorry.”  
  
“Shall we go then?” Jack-O asked, looking on in amusement.  
  
Jack glanced back at the Guardians. “Can they come?”  
  
“Sure, why not?”

 

* * *

 

 

The Guardians looked on in awe at Jack-O’s pumpkin patch, both admiring the beauty of it all and shivering at some of the decorations (and guests). Who knew that a party like this went on every year and they’d never even known about it.  
  
“Frost.”  
  
They turned in shock at the familiar tone. It was tinged with slight hatred, but nowhere near as much as they would have normally expected.   
  
Pitch Black was standing behind them, arms crossed as he looked down at the winter spirit.  
  
“Hey, Pitch,” Jack smiled, as if he were greeting an old friend. “When’d you get here?”  
  
“What are _they_ doing here?” the Boogeyman asked, eyes glancing up at the Guardians.  
  
“Relax, will you?” Jack rolled his eyes. “Jack-O said they could come. Play nice – it’s a neutral time and you know it. Besides, do you _really_ want to risk Jack-O’s wrath?”  
  
Pitch narrowed his eyes, but didn’t respond. After a moment he turned to stalk away. “Better be careful, Jack,” he said with false care. “I saw Death lurking around earlier.”  
  
Jack sighed as he felt his family’s intense gazes boring into his back.  
  
“Care to explain?” Bunny asked with a raised brow, exchanging a look with Sandy.  
  
“Well… let’s just say that Death doesn’t like me very much,” Jack replied awkwardly. “Come on, there are some… err… I’m not sure ‘people’ is the right word… anyway, there’s some spirits I’d like you to meet.”  
  
Despite the eerie atmosphere and the occasional skeleton lying around (which half the time they couldn’t tell if it was a decoration or a guest), the Guardians quickly relaxed in the unfamiliar setting. It was heartening to see Jack so happy, jumping around from one guest to the next, treating them all like they’d known each other for centuries (which they probably had). And, as the night wore on, North and Bunny had to admit (but only to themselves) that maybe Halloween wasn’t quite so bad.  
  
Maybe.  



	26. Near-Death Experience

Never let it be said that spirits didn’t take their jobs seriously – especially Death. In fact, Jack was pretty sure in some sick, twisted, sadistic way, the Grim Reaper even enjoyed his (her? Its? No one was really sure if Death had a specific gender) duties.  
  
Jack was somewhat mystified as he subtly watched the cloaked figure sipping punch in a skeletal hand (quite literally – his hand had no flesh on it whatsoever) while apparently having a somewhat animated conversation with Pitch Black, who, in Jack’s opinion, must have been taking style lessons from the timeless spirit.  
  
Maybe he hadn’t been quite as subtle as he’d hoped, for the next thing he knew, the hood turned towards him, face hidden in a shroud of darkness, and gently he set down his glass before practically gliding over. Jack’s grip on his staff tightened and he fought desperately against the strong instinct to get as far away as was physically possible.  
  
Death stopped in what would be considered a breach of personal space, so close that all Jack would have to do would be to lean slightly forwards and he’d be touching the shadowy cloak. The Grim Reaper loomed over him, bony hand clasped around the handle of his scythe; yet even at this distance (or lack thereof) no facial features could be made out. Jack wasn’t so sure that was a bad thing, if the guy’s hands were anything to go by.  
  
“Um… hi?” Jack said in a near whisper.   
  
Death replied only silence.  
  
Biting his lip, the winter spirit slowly took one large step back, giving himself room to breathe and lessening the strain on his neck.  
  
 _‘Never has one been snatched so easily from my clutches as you.’_  
  
He felt the words more than he heard them. It was like a deathly whisper (pun not intended), where nothing and everything were conveyed all at once.  
  
“…Excuse me?” Jack winced as his voice cracked.  
  
 _‘By all rights I should correct this,’_ the hand not holding the scythe rose, bony fingers frayed out towards him.  
  
Jack didn’t dare move – didn’t dare _breathe_ – as the outstretched hand stopped mere centimetres from his face. He had heard the stories that all this imposing figure had to do was touch you and your soul would be taken, but he wasn’t sure how that applied to beings that _were_ souls, or spirits at the very least. Would he simply cease to exist? But weren’t they supposed to be immortal?  
  
 _‘But it would seem that the Man in the Moon has chosen you for a greater purpose,’_ the fingers curled into a fist, before Death slowly returned his hand to his side. ‘ _The Man in the Moon, however, is not infallible, nor is he a force that governs us who are not Guardians.’_  
  
This time it was the scythe that was raised, the blade curved around the back of Jack’s neck so that its edge was only just touching skin.  
  
‘ _Your soul is mine by right,’_ there was an undeniable animosity in those words, like he had been cheated and was swearing revenge.  
  
Jack squinted his eyes shut, preparing himself for the slice that was sure to come. He had no idea what was going on, or why Death suddenly wanted to kill him, but he did know that even if he tried to fly away it would do him no good. After all, no one can escape Death.  
  
‘ _Take care, Jack Frost.’_  
  
There were several moments of nothingness. Finally, Jack found his nerve and slowly opened one eye. The scythe was no longer threatening to lop off his head, and as he took in the lack of Grim Reaper before him, he allowed the other eye to open fully.  
  
A quick glance around confirmed that the spirit was gone, who knows where, and that every other being at the party was staring at him.  
  
The winter spirit startled as a low whistle blew in his ear.  
  
“Man, he doesn’t even give the zombies that kind of attention,” Jack-O remarked, casually slinging an arm around Jack’s shoulders.  
  
“Ah, what just happened?”  
  
Jack-O raised a brow. “Clearly Death has it out for you. What did you do? I’ve rarely seen him show that much emotion. Like ever.”  
  
Emotion? The guy was monotonous for almost the whole ‘conversation’!  
  
“I have no idea,” Jack said instead.  
  
“Must’ve been something bad, is all I can say. You’d better watch yourself; Hell hath no fury like Death scorned.”  
  
“…I think you have that saying wrong.”

 

* * *

 

 

Death, much like Jack, never failed to show up to the Halloween party. And each consecutive year, Jack would find himself keeping as far away as he could, preferably with something hiding him from the spirit’s view.  
  
But if the Reaper ever noticed him, he didn’t show it. In fact, the guy didn’t so much as look at him after that; although there were times when Jack would feel like there were eyes (or eye-sockets – did the guy even _have_ eyes?) boring into the back of his head, a feeling of malevolence washing over him like a wave. But when he looked around there would be nothing there.  
  
So, for the most part, he wrote it off as a one-off occurrence. And if anyone ever noticed the way he would suddenly start walking in the opposite direction, they played it off as suddenly remembering something important and nothing to do with the fact that a cloaked skeleton was up ahead. Nope. Not at all.  
  
At least, he hoped so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was written as a result of popular demand. I hope it lives up to expectations


	27. Stronger than Fear

Jack stared at the lake in front of him. Winter was coming to an end and that meant the ice was melting. By the end of the week there would only be a few pieces of ice still bobbing along in the water and he would have moved on to either Antarctica or the Arctic to wait out the season. But there was still time.  
  
In a few weeks it would have been exactly a year since their first Guardian/family vacation. Jack fully expected them to plan another one, but with the way the last one had gone, he couldn’t say he was all that thrilled. It was, after all, his fault (but mostly Bunny’s) that everything had gone to Hell in a hand-basket.  
  
What if they wanted to go some place with water again? What if they wanted him to join in whatever water activity they were doing? What if someone more twisted than Pitch tried to take advantage of his fear? He didn’t want to let the Guardians down. Not again. There was only one thing for it, then.  
  
He had to overcome his fear of drowning.  
  
Jack gently leaned his staff against a tree before pulling off his hoodie. Then, staff in hand (like hell he was going to try anything without it), he took his first tentative steps towards the partially-melted pond.  
  
The water was freezing, not that he particularly cared, as it lapped over his bare feet. He forced himself deeper and deeper until the waves caressed his knees. Then, with a deep breath, he sat down.  
  
“Okay, Jack, you can do this,” he told himself, his grip on his staff tight in case he suddenly needed to escape. “It’s just a little water; you command ice and snow, why should you be afraid of a little water?”  
  
The wind ruffled his hair in a silent show of support.  
  
“Thanks, wind,” he murmured. “Okay, here we go.”  
  
Ever so slowly, Jack leaned backwards, allowing the frigid water to soak into his shirt until only his head and shoulders were above the water. This was the easy bit, though, he knew. The fear wouldn’t fully kick in until he was completely submerged.  
  
Shoulders under.  
  
“You know what?” Jack sat back upright like a wound spring. “Maybe I should do this where the mermaids are or… or tomorrow when there’s less ice…”  
  
The wind billowed around him, scolding.  
  
“Ugh, I know. You’re right,” Jack sighed. “No excuses.”  
  
Shoulders back under.  
  
He stayed like that for a good few minutes, trying to work up the nerve to let his head fall back.  
  
“Gotta do it quick. Just like a bandaid.”  
  
Jack sucked in a lungful of air and plunged himself completely under the water, the surface a mere few millimetres from the tip of his nose.  
  
It was like someone had flipped a switch. The mild fear that had been clinging to him from the moment he’d started thinking about the water contorted into an all-consuming terror that pulsed through his veins and froze his limbs. He’d barely been under for more than a few seconds before he shot out of the water like a rocket, hovering above the lake in the wind’s gentle embrace.  
  
“Bad idea,” Jack said in a voice that shook like the rest of him. “Very bad idea.”

 

* * *

 

 

There were probably a million better people he could have gone to. And yet Jack still found himself drawn to the Warren to find Bunny. Although, on reflection, perhaps Bunny wasn’t such a poor choice after all. Tooth would cave to his unease far too easily, North probably wouldn’t take it all very seriously or, if he did, would be a little too concerned and wouldn’t force him like he needed, and Sandy would crumble and wash away in the water. No, Bunny was the perfect choice. He cared enough (he hoped) to help him through, but was stern and no-nonsense enough to meet him verbal blow for verbal blow.  
  
Of course, what he hadn’t considered before landing on the soft green grass and seeing the army of eggs running around was the time of year. It was just coming into spring – Easter would be very soon. At that thought he almost turned around and left again but was stopped by the very kangaroo he’d come searching for.  
  
“Oi, Frostbite. What are you doing here?”  
  
Jack spun around to see Bunny with an egg and paintbrush in hand. “Um, nothing,” Jack replied. “I was just about to leave, actually.”  
  
Bunny frowned at him in suspicion. “You wouldn’t come all the way down ‘ere without a reason. ‘Specially through the start of autumn.”  
  
Jack had to concede he had a point. But he couldn’t in good conscience ask Bunny to help him; not when the Pooka had so much work to do.  
  
“Really, it’s nothing. Sorry to have bothered you,” he said sincerely, letting the wind carry him back off to his lake, leaving a mildly confused rabbit in his wake.

 

* * *

 

 

Jack sighed as he sat against the base of a tree. The lake was almost completely thawed now. May would arrive soon and shoo him away if he hadn’t already left. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to leave. As much as it pained him, he was determined to overcome his fear, and he couldn’t very well do that at either of the Poles, where the only water was deep and more than likely to be completely frozen over. Once spring was in full swing it would be too warm and there was no way he was even going to consider trying autumn; he was in Ceres’ bad books already.  
  
Really, he’d been alone for 300 years without anybody, why did he suddenly need help now? No, he could overcome this by himself. Suddenly filled with determination, Jack once again took off his hoodie and stepped out into the water. But this time he would start with something a little less threatening.  
  
Regardless of what anyone thought, he _did_ know how to swim – he’d learnt in this very lake, for goodness sake. So, when the water was at waist-height, he reclined backwards and allowed himself to float weightlessly. Limbs splayed, he let the gentle breeze blow him across the surface, the wind not needing him to tell it to keep him away from the centre where the water was deepest. When he’d finally relaxed to the point that the fear was just an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach, he decided it was time to move on to something a little more challenging.  
  
Taking a deep breath, Jack rolled over so that he was face-down in the water.  
  
And promptly sank below the surface.  
  
Everything he’d ever learnt about swimming was tugged away like the ebb of the tide as the fear took over all rational thought. Limbs thrashed as he struggled to return to the surface. When had he drifted so far that he could no longer touch the bottom? He cried out to the wind, his hand still gripping his staff, but all that escaped him was precious air; so far under the wind could no longer reach him.  
  
His struggles grew weaker as his oxygen deprived lungs screamed and black dots crept across the edges of his vision. So that’s how it would end? Stuck unconscious at the bottom of the lake indefinitely?  
  
Jack let his eyes slip closed, no energy left to fight the settling churn of the waves. His grip weakened on his staff but he was only vaguely aware of its familiar weight disappearing from his hand.  
  
Something grabbed him and all at once he was rising, tugged upwards and out of the water. Air pressed in on him and he took grateful gasping breaths as he coughed up what must have been half the lake. He subconsciously registered that he was now on dry land, his staff lying beside him, and that someone was talking to him, but the words were a low drone in the background.  
  
When he finally stopped trying to cough up a lung, Jack slowly raised his head to thank his saviour, only to come face to face with a rather drenched and worried looking Easter Bunny.  
  
“Bunny?” he croaked.  
  
Bunny seemed to sigh in relief. And then the worry was gone.  
  
“Are you out of your bloody mind?!”  
  
“…Wha?”  
  
“What the hell were you doing in the middle of the bloody lake?!”  
  
But his sluggish mind couldn’t seem to get past the fact that Bunny was _here_ , and not at the Warren where he should be working for Easter. “Bunny… what are you doing here?”  
  
That was the wrong thing to say. Bunny practically writhed in anger. “I came lookin’ for ya after ya ran off; ‘s’not like you to come all the way to the Warren for no reason – didn’t even pester me. And what do I bloody find? You drownin’. You should know better than to go out onto the lake when the ice’s melted,” he paused for a breath. “Speakin’ of which, why was it melted in the first place?”  
  
Jack blinked. “Because spring is coming?”  
  
“You know what I bloody well mean, Jack. Doesn’t matter what season it is – you stand on the water and it freezes.”

It was coming to Jack’s attention (his mind was finally catching up to him) that Bunny was angry _because_ he was worried. He had to admit, if it had been the other way around, he probably would have reacted in the same way. It was all rather suggestive if you didn’t know the back-story. His ‘visit’ to the Warren probably wasn’t helping matters.  
  
“Thank you,” Jack said. “For pulling me out, I mean.”  
  
Some of Bunny’s anger dissipated but he was still thoroughly ticked off. “Mind explaining what happened?” he asked in a way that was clearly not a question.  
  
“I was trying to get over my… my fear of drowning.”  
  
Bunny stared at him.  
  
Jack looked away self consciously.  
  
“Is that why you came to the Warren?”  
  
Jack nodded. “You said that if I ever wanted to, you know, get over it, that I could ask but I forgot that you’re really busy this time of year and I didn’t want to bother you over something so trivial.”  
  
Bunny was staring again. And then he slapped him upside the head.  
  
“Ow! What was that for?!” Jack glared.  
  
“You dill,” Bunny shook his head. “I’ll admit that it’s not the best time, but don’t feel like you have to keep everything to yourself. You’re not alone anymore. And if it’s a problem to you, then it’s not trivial. Got it?”  
  
Jack nodded.  
  
“Good. Now, if you can hold ya horses for a few more weeks, we’ll have all year to sort you out, a’right?”

 

* * *

 

 

The overgrown rabbit was true to his word; a mere few days after Easter the two of them were once more standing at the edge of Jack’s lake. Bunny had grumbled something about spring and winter not supposed to be there, as well as a few muttered comments about wanting to overcome his fear in ‘the lake he bloody died in’ but other than that protests were few and far between. Besides, Jack was sure May wouldn’t mind – it was for a good cause, after all. And unlike Ceres, she wasn’t as quick to chase him off from what was the closest thing he had to a proper home.  
  
“So it’s only when your head goes under that’s the problem, right?” Bunny asked, eyeing the no doubt freezing water. The winter spirit wouldn’t mind, but he was a different matter. But he’d promised to help and he wasn’t going to back down now, and certainly not because of a little cold water.  
  
“Or when it gets so deep that I can’t touch the bottom,” came Jack’s quiet reply. He’d taken his hoodie off and left it with his staff just shy of the lakeshore at Bunny’s insistence. While the Pooka knew that it was a comfort thing to have the stick in hand, he also knew that it would probably hinder him more than help. Besides, he had no intention of letting anything happen to the kid.  
  
“Right then,” Bunny nodded. “That’s clearly what we need to work on. So why don’t we start by getting your face wet?”  
  
Jack stared at him.  
  
“I don’t mean sticking your head underwater,” he huffed. “Just splash your face a bit; you don’t even have to be in the water.”  
  
The look turned mildly incredulous.  
  
Bunny rolled his eyes, scooping up a handful of water and hurling it at the winter spirit’s face. Jack spluttered, glaring at him. “You wanted my help,” Bunny told him.  
  
Jack sighed, clearly not happy about it but relenting anyway. He _had_ wanted the kangaroo’s help.  
  
“Right. Now that your face’s wet–”  
  
“And _thank you_ for that.”  
  
“–we can move on.” Gritting his teeth in preparation for the biting cold he knew he was about to experience, Bunny stepped into the water. Even though it was spring now, the water hadn’t had enough warm days to heat up and he knew that, while it wouldn’t bother Jack, he would have to be careful not to stay submerged too long if he didn’t want to catch a cold. “Come on.”  
  
Jack only hesitated for a moment before joining him a short distance in, barely deep enough to reach the boy’s knees. “What are we going to do now?” he asked, his voice betraying his nervousness.  
  
“I just want ya to lie down,” Bunny informed him. “At this depth your face will still be above the water.”  
  
Jack nodded stiffly, lowering himself until he was sitting before slowly leaning backwards, a paw on his back in a show of support and to let the kid know that Bunny was right there.  
  
“Shut your eyes,” the Guardian of Hope instructed. Jack glanced at him momentarily before obeying. “I’m gonna pour a bit more water over your face; just to get you used to the feeling, a’right?”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
With one paw still steady beneath Jack, Bunny began to trickle small amounts of freezing liquid over the boy’s face, noting the way he flinched slightly at the contact. He repeated the process a few more times until the tension started leaving Jack’s muscles and he no longer reacted.  
  
“Try to stay relaxed; I’m gonna move you a little further out, but only enough so you’ve got more room,” he hastily added when Jack’s whole body stiffened and his eyes opened wide.  
  
“O-okay.”  
  
“S’alright, Frostbite. I’m not gonna let you drown.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
The show of confidence spurring him on, Bunny gently guided the winter spirit further out, letting him know everything he was doing as he was doing it to both reassure the kid and to keep him calm. There were no real problems throughout the whole time until he had Jack roll over so that he was face down, his body still floating.  
  
Even with Bunny holding him up, Jack stiffened, his buoyancy disturbed so that the water could no longer support him. The water was still shallow enough that all he would have to do would be to sit up, but Bunny was hoping it wouldn’t come to that. He spoke words of encouragement and reassurances, and was pleased to find that Jack didn’t give in until he’d run out of air.  
  
It was small progress, but progress none the less.  
  
When Bunny started to lose feeling in his paws and the shivers started, he decided to call it a day, organising with the youngest Guardian to meet there the next day. Jack didn’t mention it, but it was clear that he was grateful for the break.

Nearly a month later, Jack was both surprised and proud that he could sit completely submerged under the water at a depth that was greater than he was tall without more than a death-grip on Bunny’s arm. The Pooka was confident that in less than another month he’d be able to do it on his own. His goal was to overcome his fear enough that when the time came that the Guardians planned another holiday, he would be able to join them disaster-free and he honestly believed that with Bunny’s help it would happen.  
  
He really owed the overgrown rabbit, not just for helping him with his fear, but also for reminding him that just because he was used to being alone didn’t make him okay, nor did it mean he didn’t need anyone else. There was nothing wrong with asking for help and his problems were important, even if they didn’t feel it. He wasn’t alone. Not anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is dedicated to regularshow565 (FFN) who requested: "a chapter on Bunny helping Jack with a fear of his'.


	28. Alone Together

Jack groaned as consciousness slowly returned to him. He had no idea what had happened, but his head was throbbing almost as bad as that time he’d crashed into a tree (several times) and the air around him was uncomfortably stuffy and warm. But perhaps most concerning was that the world remained black even after he opened his eyes.  
  
“You with us, Frosty?”  
  
Ah. That would explain the temperature. “Lleu?”  
  
“The one and only. How are you feeling?”  
  
“Like I’ve been hit by a truck.” Also something that had happened more than once.  
  
Lleu chuckled, the sound irritating his headache like a hammer to the skull. “Yeah, a club to the… well, everything, will do that to you.”  
  
“Huh?” and then an earlier comment registered in his aching brain. “Wait. Us?”  
  
“Unfortunately,” said a feminine voice that could only belong to May Queen.  
  
“My sentiments exactly,” and there was Ceres.  
  
“Um, I have a couple of questions,” Jack said.  
  
“Fire away.” How Lleu could sound like he was enjoying himself was beyond Jack.  
  
“First of all, assuming I haven’t gone blind, why is everything so dark?”  
  
“We’re in a pit – some form of oubliette, I would presume,” May replied quietly.  
  
“Right… that leads me to my second question.”  
  
“Let me guess,” Ceres interrupted, and Jack could practically _feel_ the eye roll he was no doubt receiving. “Why are we in a pit?”  
  
“Actually, I was gonna ask ‘what happened’ but that works too.”  
  
Lleu laughed again. “To answer both questions, we were captured by a Cyclops, who presumably dumped us down here until he feels like eating us.”  
  
“What?!” and if anyone ever accused his voice of squeaking, Jack would vehemently deny it. “Well, that explains the pain, I suppose.” Jack reached around in the dark, groping for his staff, his eyes widening when he was unable to locate it. “My… my staff! Do any of you know where my staff is?”  
  
“Calm down,” Ceres ground out irritably. “It’s outside; the Cyclops was, amazingly, smart enough to realise what it was for and left it top-side before throwing you on top of us.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
They lapsed into silence.  
  
“So… anyone got any ideas on how to get out of here?” Jack asked after a while.  
  
“We could serve you to our jailer.”  
  
“Ceres,” May said in warning.  
  
“What?” the autumn spirit snapped defensively. “Oh, don’t pretend it would bother you at all if the living ice cube was removed. We’d still be stuck here in the dark but at least the temperature would be tolerable.”  
  
“Because the cold would totally bother an autumn spirit,” Lleu intervened sarcastically. “Speaking of which, it’s not too hot in here for you, is it, Jack? I moved myself as far away from you as possible, but I doubt it’ll help much.”  
  
“You make it sound like I’ve got some infectious disease,” Jack raised a brow.  
  
“You probably do.”  
  
“Ceres, enough,” May sighed exasperatedly.  
  
“Why are we even arguing?” Lleu cut across. “I mean, I know we’re not technically related or anything, but we all consider Mother Nature as a kind of substitute mom or whatever it is she is to us, so doesn’t that technically make us, I don’t know, siblings or something?”  
  
“Wouldn’t that kinda make it our _job_ to argue?” Jack retorted at the same time Ceres said, “I am _not_ related to that menace!”  
  
Lleu sighed. “May, help me out here, man.”  
  
May heaved her own sigh. “While the notion is rather strange, I suppose Lleu does have a point; we _do_ all consider Mother to be such, even if it’s based purely on our position as seasonal spirits and hers as Mother Nature. Each season, likewise, relies on each of the others. Bickering like children is a waste of time.”  
  
“I probably wouldn’t have put it in those exact words but yeah,” Lleu agreed.  
  
There were a few grumbles from Jack’s left (where he presumed Ceres was sitting) but other than that the dark pit returned to silence.

 

* * *

  


“Who’s the strongest? The strongest should go on the bottom,” Lleu suggested.  
  
“I would think the heaviest would make a better foundation,” May countered.  
  
“Okay then, who’s the heaviest?”  
  
“That’s so rude!” Ceres raged. “I can practically feel all three of you staring at me!”  
  
“Sorry, Ceres, but without the wind, we don’t have much choice,” Jack shrugged, taking the figurative fall for the other two.  
  
“Fine!”  
  
“Who’s second heaviest?”  
  
“Probably me,” Lleu replied. “But there’s something else we should take into consideration. Jack and I can’t get too close, so if I go next it’ll mean Jack will have to go after May.”  
  
“Either that or it’ll be you on top.”  
  
“Right. So I’m next, then.”  
  
There were a few shuffling and rustling sounds, followed by a grunt.  
  
“Your shoes better be clean,” Ceres grumbled.  
  
“Alright, May, your turn.”  
  
Jack felt the presence on his right move away followed by more protests.  
  
“Gah, how much do you two _weigh_?”  
  
“Oh relax, will you? All of us are light enough to get blown around by the wind.”  
  
“If you look up my dress you’ll regret it.”  
  
“May, I can’t even see my hand in front of my face; your underwear are perfectly safe.”  
  
“Okay, Jack, I’m ready.”  
  
“Right,” Jack took a few small steps forward, not wanting to bump into the growing tower of spirits and accidentally cause them all to fall. The stack was easy enough to find – the pit may have been deep but it wasn’t very wide in diameter.   
  
He flinched when a hand sudden touched his elbow. “Here, give me your hand and I’ll help you up,” Ceres said grudgingly.  
  
Jack slid his arm slowly out of her grip until their hands touched, allowing her to guide him upwards.  
  
“Ugh your feet are like ice!”  
  
“Duh, spirit of winter.”  
  
“Ow! At least I’m not a living furnace like some people.”  
  
“Sorry, Frosty. Just more incentive to climb on up, eh?”  
  
“Jack, you’re standing on my braid.”  
  
“Oops, sorry, May.”  
  
Having had centuries to practice balancing on the tip of a thin staff, keeping steady on May’s narrow shoulders was a walk in the park and, slowly, Jack stood upright.  
  
“Ow!”  
  
“You okay?”  
  
“Yeah, hit my head on the lid.”  
  
“Well stop yabbering and open it already!”  
  
“Alright, alright already.”  
  
“Just ignore her, Jack.”  
  
Jack pressed both palms up against the thick slab of wood and pushed as hard as he could. But it was like trying to shift a boulder.  
  
“Ugh, he grunted. “It’s too heavy.”  
  
“Either that or it’s locked.”  
  
“Oops.”  
  
“What?” Ceres’ tone made him want to stay at the top of the pit until the Cyclops came back so he could get out of there without having to answer the question – one way or another.  
  
“I may have, accidentally, forgotten about certain side effects of my powers and, completely unintentionally–”  
  
“Just spit it out already!”  
  
“…I think I froze the lid.”  
  
There was a collective groan.  
  
“Clearly we’re not going to achieve anything like this,” May said. “So, Jack, if you could get off me it would be much appreciated; I don’t think the lid is the only thing you’re freezing.”  
  
“Sorry!” Jack winced, jumping down as easily as he would from any tree.  
  
More shuffling sounds followed as the spirit-tower was disassembled.  


 

* * *

 

“Okay, what about this. What’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever done?”  
  
“That’s a hard one,” Jack grinned.  
  
It had been at least an hour since their failed escape attempt and they’d taken to answering whatever questions came to mind to stave off boredom. They’d already gone through the boring (and highly predictable) ‘favourite colour’ and ‘if you were an animal what would be’ and so forth.  
  
“…I accidentally introduced _Cirsium vulgare_ to North America,” surprisingly it was May who confessed first, and Jack was sure he wasn’t the only one to turn a shocked gaze to where the spring spirit was sitting. “…And Australia.”  
  
“Am I the only one who has no idea what _Cirsi-vulgar-_ whatever is?” Jack asked when it was clear no one was going to say anything.  
  
“…It’s spear thistle.”  
  
May had done something wrong? _May_ had done something wrong? And this wasn’t just some minor act of ‘stupidity’. Thistles were a noxious weed! And _May_ was at fault.  
  
“How do you accidentally spread an invasive weed?” Lleu said incredulously, because, really, it had to be asked.  
  
“Some seeds must have gotten caught on my dress when I went through Europe,” the poor girl sounded so resigned and guilty. Jack almost felt bad for her. Almost. The other, much larger part of him was enjoying the fact that strict, no-nonsense May had screwed up.  
  
“You call that stupid?” Lleu laughed. “One time I messed up with the monsoons and several countries had harvest failures. Would’ve turned out fine but the governments had no idea what they were doing. I still feel bad about that one, actually.”  
  
“Technically that wasn’t completely your fault,” Jack pointed out.  
  
“Yeah, but if the monsoons had come like they were supposed to it never would have happened, faulty government or not.”  
  
“One time I decided to do a little touring before winter and accidentally started a migration,” Jack shrugged.  
  
“Please, I hardly think that’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”  
  
“No, you’re right. I… may have had a hand in the Year Without a Summer in 1816… let’s just say Mount Tambora’s eruption wasn’t the sole cause. Purely accidental, I swear.”  
  
“Um, yeah, sorry about that,” Lleu said sheepishly. “I may or may not have irritated the fire spirits that year…”  
  
Jack stared silently for several seconds before bursting into laughter. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh. It was a horrible event.”  
  
“What about you, Ceres?” Lleu asked. “Done anything stupid?”  
  
“This is childish, I won’t–”  
  
“Oh, come on, ‘Res; May told us hers and I doubt you’ll find a more serious person anywhere.”  
  
Silence.  
  
“Ceres?”  
  
“… _Some_ of those crop circles might not have been made by people or aliens.”  
  
A small snort caught them all of guard; the only warning they got before May Queen, of all people, giggled uncontrollably from her ‘corner’ of the pit. The two boys were quick to join in before, at last, a hesitant autumn spirit.

 

* * *

 

 

“Ugh I’m so _bored_. I almost want the Cyclops to turn up just so I’d have something to do!”  
  
“Be careful what you wish for, Snow Cone.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Did anyone remember to bring any food?”  
  
“Lleu, I’m pretty sure none of us _planned_ to get captured by a man-eating Cyclops.”  
  
“Apparently we’re dinner,” Jack shrugged. “Assuming you don’t want to eat yourself, May’s probably the closest thing to ‘cooked’.”  
  
“Hey!”  
  
“Ceres, can’t you grow us some apples or something?”  
  
“Do you see an apple tree in here?”  
  
“Actually I can’t see anything.”  
  
“Me neither.”  
  
“Ugh, you know what I mean.”  
  
“Here, I can probably grow us some flowers,” May huffed.  
  
“Flowers?” Lleu and Ceres echoed.  
  
“They’re actually pretty good,” Jack commented. He could feel three sets of intense stares aimed at him. “What?”

 

* * *

 

 

“Why do you hate me so much anyway?”  
  
“You know why,” Ceres grumbled.  
  
“Okay, I get the whole ‘ruining the pretty colours of autumn’ and all that, but you do realise winter would happen anyway, even if I didn’t turn up.”  
  
“…”  
  
“Right?”  
  
“I think it’s because you’re the embodiment of the subject of her animosity.”  
  
“Did Lleu just say something smart?”  
  
“Hey!”

 

* * *

 

 “How about this, then: I promise I won’t interfere with the coming of winter in whichever part of the world you’re in, okay? You’ll just have to tell me where you’re going to be so I can avoid it.”  
  
“…Really?”  
  
“Really.”  
  
“Alright then; I’ll hold you to that.”  
  
“I don’t know about you, but I think the dark must have gotten to those two if they’re actually having a civil conversation,” Lleu whispered to May.  
  
“I heard that,” Ceres and Jack said.  


 

* * *

 

“I guess winter’s not _all_ bad. The frost patterns and the snowflakes are pretty.”  
  
“Who are you and what have you done with Ceres?!”

 

* * *

 

 

“Guys… I need to go to the bathroom.”  
  
“Go in here and I swear to MiM it’ll be the last thing you’ll ever do.”

 

* * *

 

 

Jack started awake at the sound of heavy movements, not having realised he’d fallen asleep.  
  
“Do you guys hear that?” he whispered.  
  
“Yes,” May returned.  
  
“You think someone’s trying to open the lid?” Lleu asked.  
  
“I know I said earlier I wouldn’t mind, but now I’m not so sure I want to face a hungry Cyclops.”  
  
“What? Ceres, you could take that guy with one hand tied behind your back!”  
  
“Shh!” May shushed harshly.  
  
Whoever it was was clearly having trouble with all the ice that had frozen the lid in place, several angry muffled curses drifting down to them.  
  
“Who do you think it is?” Lleu said quietly.  
  
“Damn it, Jack! Why did you have to go and freeze the damn thing?!” the muffled voice yelled. “And don’t even try to pretend it wasn’t you!”  
  
Three of the four seasonal spirits burst into beaming grins. Jack wasn’t sure he could share the sentiment.  
  
“I think I’m supposed to feel relieved that we’re being rescued but she doesn’t sound all that happy with me…”  
  
“I’m sure she’ll forgive you. She always does.”  
  
There was a loud bang as a torrent of wind tore the lid off its hinges, pouring sunlight down into the pit and forcing the four inside to shield their eyes.  
  
“Are you alright?” Mother Nature asked in concern, peering down at her ‘children’.  
  
As soon as they’d recovered from their blinding, Lleu, May and Ceres shot up into the air in three gusts, Jack suddenly finding himself covered in leaves, petals, and a fine layer of sweat. He hadn’t realised how much Lleu’s natural heat had been affecting him until the cooler air pressed against him.  
  
He could hear Mother Nature fussing over them, reassuring them that ‘the nasty oaf wouldn’t be hurting them ever again’ which could mean many, many things. Jack looked up at the smooth stone walls around him, knowing that no amount of agility would help him get out. He was stuck down there until someone thought to toss him his staff.  
  
“Oi, Jack!”  
  
The winter spirit looked up to see three sets of hands reaching down for him, one of their owners beaming, another smiling softly and the last looking away and pretending not to care. Mother Nature stood behind them, pride etched all over her beautiful face.  
  
Jack grinned back at them, feeling like he belonged with these supposed ‘siblings’ of his for the first time in 300 years.  
  
“Not that I don’t appreciate the effort, but I can’t exactly reach you. Why not just pass me my staff?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heh. Ben 10 reference XD


	29. What Family's For

Jack shifted into a more comfortable position under the tree he was leaning against, smiling to himself as he looked out at his pond. It was mid-transition between autumn and winter, but no snow or ice had yet to form.  
  
True to his word, Jack had heard from a woodland sprite that Ceres would be spending the rest of her season up in Europe, and opted to stay away. He couldn’t help but wonder if she had deliberately left his home available to him. If so, he was grateful. Burgess, and more specifically the pond, was the one place he always returned to; the closest thing he could call a home. Sure he spent the off-season down in Antarctica and he had somehow gone from being alone to being part of three different families (plus one potential – he still wasn’t really sure where he stood with the other seasonals), but this was different.  
  
So relaxed was he that he didn’t even realise he wasn’t alone until he was sent flying half-way across the clearing to land face-first into the water. Jack gasped, breaking the surface, infinitely grateful for Bunny’s help the previous year. He still wasn’t comfortable in deep water, but at least he could get himself back to shore without going under.  
  
As it turned out, he didn’t need to. Something grabbed him by the hood of his jumper, lifting him out of the chilled pond between forefinger and thumb. Jack forced himself to look up, coming face-to-face with his assailant.  
  
“Oh this isn’t good,” he muttered.  
  
The Cyclops glared at him with its one great eye, looking every bit like it was restraining itself from smashing every bone in his body with a single hit.  
  
“Um… can I help you?” Jack asked nervously.  
  
The Cyclops growled; a deep, throaty sound that vibrated through him. “Little whelp,” it boomed. “You will pay for what you did to Grok!”  
  
“…Who?”  
  
This was clearly the wrong thing to say, as Jack suddenly found himself struck with a club ( _This feels familiar)_ into a tree. He cried out, feeling something (or several somethings) snap, as he slumped to the ground.  
  
“My brother!” the Cyclops roared, stomping towards him. “He is blinded because of you and your siblings!”  
  
“I have no idea what you’re talking about!” The only Cyclops he’d ever met was… oh. Well, that explained what Mother Nature had said. But hey, at least she hadn’t killed him. “I had nothing to do with that!” he protested. “If ‘Grok’ hadn’t kidnapped us in the first place Mother never would have done what she did.”  
  
Bad word choice again. Man, he was on a role today. One huge, meaty hand wrapped around his neck (and most of his chest), squeezing painfully as it lifted him until his feet were dangling a good few metres off the ground.  
  
Jack struggled to gain any air, his lungs aching from both the lack of oxygen and the physical abuse they were receiving. His chest was constricting, threatening to crumple like a paper bag in the Cyclops’ grip.  
  
“Hey!” he heard someone shout through the haze that had overcome his mind. “Nobody picks on him but me!”  
  
Suddenly the pressure was gone and he was tumbling, landing heavily with a loud ‘oomph’ in the dirt. He forced himself to look up at the newcomers when he heard a second voice say, “You mean ‘us’, right?”  
  
Jack blinked, half expecting the image before him to vanish, surprised when it didn’t. But he _had_ to be hallucinating, because there was no way the other three seasonals were standing across from him and the Cyclops. He blinked again, starting when May was suddenly crouched in front of him.  
  
“Are you okay, Jack?” she asked quietly. He was vaguely aware of the sounds of a fight happening behind her (“Good! I can deal with you all at once!” “You can try.” “How dare you make such a mess in my season!”).  
  
‘I’m fine’ would have been the biggest lie in the century, so he settled for, “Been better.”  
  
“I can imagine. Come on, let’s go find you a nice snowdrift to lie down in.” This was weird, very un-May-like behaviour. He was starting to wonder if she wasn’t actually Tooth and he was simply hallucinating. “Can’t have you incapacitated with winter so close.” Nope. That was definitely May.  
  
Very carefully, she started to lift him up into a more easily moveable position, but no amount of caution could keep it from hurting entirely. Jack hissed through his teeth, struggling not to cry out. A snowdrift really did sound good right then. With a firm grip on him, May directed the slightly warm, petal-ridden wind to lift them off the ground. The pain of being jostled like that must have overcome him, for the next thing he knew he was being deposited gently into a pile of snow.  
  
“Where are we?” he asked groggily. Because it wasn’t even fully winter yet; there shouldn’t have even been any piles of snow around.  
  
“The edge of the A-Arctic,” a small voice told him, shaking. “It’s the f-furthest I c-can take you.”  
  
Already the soothing cold was hastening his body’s natural healing process, and he turned his head to face the spring spirit. She was several shades paler than normal, with a hint of blue on her lips as she hugged herself in a futile attempt to preserve body heat.  
  
“The Arctic?!” Jack sprung upright, instantly regretting it as broken ribs were jostled. With a pained grunt he fell backwards into the snow. “You’ll freeze out here!”  
  
There was no reply save the near-silent clacking of May’s teeth.  
  
“Here,” he said, pulling himself back up – slowly, this time. With a great amount of effort, he managed to pull off his hoodie (the ice lining it instantly thawing) and handed it to her. “It’s not much but it’s better than just a dress.”  
  
May stared at him wordlessly before hesitantly taking the offered garment with shaking hands, pulling it on over her head. She was practically swimming in it, able to pull her knees into it as well.  
  
“You should go. Before you freeze.”  
  
“Not until I’m certain you’ll be okay.”  
  
“I’ve had worse.” That earned him a grimace.  
  
“Did somebody order a heater?” a familiar voice called.  
  
Jack looked up to see Lleu arriving with Ceres in tow, both looking a little more chilled than they’d prefer. Lleu took one glance at the still-shivering May and pulled her close to him, allowing his natural heat to help warm her up. It wouldn’t do much – while in a regular winter his powers would melt the snow, in a place such as this even he could feel the cold – but it was better than nothing.  
  
“The Cyclops?” May murmured.  
  
“Dealt with,” Ceres said tersely. “I doubt he’ll be a problem anymore.”  
  
“You know, Mother said something similar…” Jack trailed off, burying deeper into the snow.  
  
“And she was right. It wasn’t the one who captured us that was the problem this time.”  
  
“Revenge-ridden angry brother,” Lleu smirked. “And I can happily confirm that this time we won’t be seeing either of the brothers again.”  
  
“Do I really want to know?” Jack frowned.  
  
“No. Probably not,” Lleu snorted. “How’re you feeling, Frosty? Cause I’d really like to go somewhere I’m less likely to get frostbite.”  
  
“I’m fine,” and this time it wasn’t a lie. Well, not completely. Jack was able to sit upright with only mild pain. It was a far cry from ‘better’, but it was something – he could probably manange return to Burgess and be back to normal in about a week if he came back here every couple of days or so.  
  
It still took Ceres’ help to get to his feet, though.  
  
“What were you guys doing there?” he asked, his mind finally catching up with him.  
  
“What do you mean ‘what’?” Lleu gaped. “Couple of woodland sprites told me you were in trouble so I found May and we came to help.”  
  
Woodland sprites? But they worked under… “Ceres?”  
  
The spirit in question looked haughtily away. “Some of the sprites saw what was happening and like hell I was going to sit by and let some crazed giant ruin what’s left of autumn.”  
  
“What she _means_ is that’s what family’s for,” Lleu rolled his eyes. “You’re not a bad kid, Jack. And I’m sorry it took us so long to see that. It’s like May said back in our adventure in the dark; we may not get along all the time, but in a sense we _are_ siblings, so I figure it’s about time we started acting like it.”  
  
Jack gaped at them, lost for words, as a pang built in his heart. He felt… touched. Honest to goodness touched.  
  
“I’m sorry to interrupt this heart-warming conversation, but the rest of me would like some warming, too. I can’t feel my legs anymore,” May cut across.  
  
Lleu laughed, tugging her beside him as all four of them allowed the wind to sweep them up in its welcome embrace, supporting each other as they began the slow journey back to Burgess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A sequel of sorts to the previous chapter due to popular demand. I might give the seasonals a break for now but they'll be back again in future.
> 
> Now that my account here is in synch with my account on FFN, I can focus on actually writing more chapters XD


	30. Windy Season

Jack was rudely awoken from his sleep by a strong gust of wind shoving him off the tree branch he’d been reclining on and into a snow bank below. Springing up into a sitting position, he frantically scanned the surrounding area for signs of potential danger. When nothing presented itself, he slumped his shoulders, groaning as he ran a tired hand down his face.  
  
“That time of year already, huh?” he asked rhetorically. Another gust, stronger this time, threw him up into the air and he cried out in shock.  
  
Jack _hated_ this time of year.  
  
“Wind, please? It’s not even sunrise yet. Can’t you let me sleep for a few more hours?” he whined.  
  
The only response he got was a sudden lack of air current beneath him and he plummeted, only to be caught again mere inches from the ground and thrown into the side of a tree. A small breeze gently ruffled his hair.  
  
“It’s alright,” Jack told it. “I know it’s not completely your fault. But man, didn’t even get any warning this year.”  
  
Normally when windy season (as he called it) started, Jack would quickly do as much of his duties as a winter spirit as he could so that when the season got in full swing he wouldn’t have to do nearly as much travelling on it. He may have been the Guardian of Fun, but that didn’t mean he liked being tossed through the air like a rag doll. He wondered if Lleu had to deal with crazy wind, too.  
  
“Looks like we’ll be staying in Burgess for a while,” he shrugged, placing his staff on the ground next to him so he could enjoy what was left of the night without getting blown away. He’d never seen any wolves or anything in the woods, so he was pretty sure it was safe to sleep on the ground. If a day turned up where the wind wasn’t quite so rowdy he would move on to some of the places he hadn’t visited much that season. But until then, he would have to put up with being grounded.

 

* * *

 

 

Half the class, Jamie included, jumped when something banged loudly into the window. Their gazes shot towards the pane in question but there was nothing to show for the sudden interruption of their math lesson.  
  
“I’m sure it was just a bird,” their teacher assured them, returning his gaze to the board where he was writing up an equation that, to Jamie, may as well have been another language.  
  
But Jamie knew it was too loud to have been a bird. It would’ve had to have been something bigger. And there was only one thing he could think of. But when Jack turned up at his school, it was usually during the breaks. And on the few rare occasions that he joined him in class, the winter spirit was always careful when sneaking in. He’d never slammed into the window like that.  
  
Jamie shared a look with his friends, their faces confirming that they were on the same line of thinking as him. He just hoped Jack would still be around when they were finally allowed to go outside.

 

* * *

 

 

Jack didn’t bother raising his head when the sound of several pairs of feet began getting closer to him. In fact, he hadn’t moved at all since he’d fallen into the pile of snow beneath the classroom window. His staff was mere centimetres from his outstretched fingers – within easy reach if he needed it – but not touching them so as not to get violently assaulted by buildings again.  
  
“Jack! Are you okay?!”  
  
Jack cracked open one eye to see Jamie standing over him, looking worried. His friends were likewise crowded around him, wearing matching expressions.  
  
“I’m fine,” he said, sitting up to prove it. He’d been lying there for a good forty-five minutes; more than enough time for the dizziness to pass.  
  
“Not your finest entrance,” the kid smirked.  
  
“Wasn’t even supposed to be an entrance,” Jack replied, letting Jamie pull him to his feet. Pippa held his staff out to him and he quickly stuffed his hands into his hoodie pocket. The kids looked at him in confusion. “The wind, ah, gets a little carried away this time of year.”  
  
“Is that why you crashed into the window?” Caleb asked.  
  
“Yeah; I was actually trying to head over to the park,” he grimaced. “Do me a favour?” he asked Pippa. “Hang onto my staff for me?”  
  
“Um sure,” she replied.  
  
“Thanks,” Jack smiled. Another strong gust of wind rocked the trees, billowing their hair and clothes around. “As soon as I touch it I’ll be blasted off again and there’s only so many times you can be thrown into a building before it gets old.”  
  
He ended up spending their break with them, starting a snowball fight that eventually included most of the kids, even the ones that couldn’t see him (which was most of them, but he didn’t mind). Pippa had been forced to leave his staff leaning against a tree so she could properly involve herself in the commotion and Jack had had to make do without it to form ammo for both himself and the kids, but it had been a good half hour and by the end of it he’d mostly forgotten about his flight problems.  
  
But then, of course, he’d been cruelly reminded.  
  
“Hey, Jack,” Jamie said, tugging on his sleeve.  
  
Jack paused, about to pelt Monty in the back of the head with a snowball, and looked down at him. Jamie was pointing up at the sky and Jack followed his gaze. And groaned. _Of course_ North would call for a meeting when he couldn’t even fly in a straight line. He contemplated skipping out but, important or not, he knew it would be a bad idea.  
  
“Is everything okay?” Claude asked, noticing what had distracted them.  
  
“Yeah. North just likes to get us together every now and then,” Jack smiled. “Just means I’m in for a rough journey.” He trudged over to where his staff still stood on the sidelines. “I’ll see you guys later.”

 

* * *

 

 

It had been almost two hours and yet Jack had still not shown up at the Pole. It wasn’t a serious meeting – just a progress report – but it was worrying nonetheless. There had only been a few times Jack had missed a meeting (he took his role as a Guardian very seriously) and most of them hadn’t been good news for their youngest member. So it was perfectly natural for the others to be feeling a little worried.  
  
Just as North opened his mouth to once again voice his concerns and suggest going out to look for their wayward winter spirit, a powerful gust burst through the open window (always left open for Jack’s convenience and thereby termed ‘Jack’s Window’). The four Guardians watched blankly as Jack stumbled head-over-heels into the floor. Literally into it. A nice loud bang and all.  
  
The dishevelled Guardian of Fun groaned as he pulled himself upright, releasing his grip on his staff and pushing it just out of reach with the sleeve of his hoodie. To say he was a mess would be an understatement. His clothes were covered in dirt and significantly more ice than usual, much like his hair which appeared to have been frozen in a flat windswept position. There were several scratches on his face, hands and feet and a slight discolouring on his cheek which was probably going to become a colourful bruise soon.  
  
Jack wobbled unsteadily as he staggered over to the table, leaving his staff where it was on the floor, and plonked himself heavily into a chair where he promptly let his head fall on the table.  
  
“I hope this is important,” his muffled voice reached them.  
  
“What on Earth happened to you?” Bunny asked, voicing all their thoughts.  
  
Jack lifted his head just enough to look up at the Pooka. “I hit no less than ten trees, bounced off six buildings, fell out of the sky eight times – three of which ended with me in the ocean – and doubled back on myself so many times I forgot which way was north,” he explained, earning wide-eyed gazes from everybody. “So _please_ tell me Pitch’s back or someone’s dying,” he begged, turning his focus to North.  
  
North winced. “Sorry, Jack.”  
  
Jack whined in exasperated despair, letting his head fall back to the polished wood.  
  
“What, were you drunk?” Bunny asked incredulously. Jack glared at him.  
  
“No. It’s windy season.”  
  
Bunny just stared blankly.  
  
“Every year around this time the wind starts going a little crazy, so when I’m holding my staff and the wind blows I get knocked around like a leaf. Normally it’s not a problem but I didn’t have time to prepare this year.”  
  
Bunny’s blank expression slowly morphed into a smirk. And then he burst into laughter. Jack reached over and froze his whiskers.  
  
“But can’t you just switch to a different current when you reach an area where the wind isn’t blowing as strongly?” Tooth asked.  
  
“It’s not that simple,” Jack said, ignoring Bunny’s cries of protest and Sandy’s silent snickering. “I tried that but the only wind that will carry me is this one. It’s the same for the other seasonals, too.”  
  
“Well, Jack, you are welcome to stay here at Pole until wind calms down,” North offered.  
  
“Yeah; I don’t think I’m going anywhere for a while. Thanks, North.” He was probably going to go stir-crazy from being stuck in one place for so long – particularly since it was indoors – but it was better that than the alternative.  
  
“Now how about we start meeting, ya?”


	31. Instinct

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's fairly clear that this (and any, really) series like this is made up of author head-canon and other things that come to mind, but this chapter's a teeny bit of an AU of an AU. If that makes sense.
> 
> It's a request from a guest reviewer on FFN, who gave me this prompt: "One where some other spirits attack jack when hes sleeping, attacks him, but jack fights back like an animal (call it insticts from being alone so long), the guardians sees this, tries to help, but he attacks them, they panic, one of em gets lleu ( i forgot how its spelled), and you take it from there because my idea just fizzled out... Plz do this!"

_He was a wolf, stalking through the forest of night with only the stars to light the moonless sky. He was alone, his pack had abandoned him. But that was okay. He was used to being alone.  
  
There was a strong scent in the air, luring his senses with promises of satiating his hunger. He moved quickly, his paws silent as they trudged across the spotless snow, darting between the trees like a shadow. His prey was so close now, its silhouette visible in the distance. He crept slowly around, being sure to stay downwind so as not to alert his target of his presence before he was ready.  
  
As he got closer the single silhouette morphed into two, then three, continuing to split and divide until there were almost a dozen. He sprang forward on powerful legs, eyes locked on a single target that he would pursue until he either caught it or could run no further.  
  
He had expected the silhouettes to scatter as his presence became known but they merely turned shadowy heads towards him, not a hint of fear permeating the air. He skidded to a halt as they suddenly charged towards him, realising with sudden horror that the stench of prey he had hitherto been following had shifted, changed into that of a predator. He turned to run back the way he had come, only to slip and fall. He looked down at himself, confused at the sudden change to his body. Where had those powerful muscles gone? Where had his clear night-vision vanished to? Where had his superior hearing and sense of smell disappeared to?  
  
He was not a wolf anymore.  
  
Struggling to his feet, unbalanced on two legs, he tried to run, tried to get away from the malevolent beings charging towards him. But it was like trying to run through water. His strides were slow and heavy, and he’d barely taken more than a step before they were upon him.  
  
They were large, hulking beasts with thick fur and menacing yellow eyes that tore through the darkness. He recognised these predators. They were the ones that had hunted him during all those years he’d stayed in a deep forest, hidden away from a cruel world that could only ignore him. Or was this the very same moment? Did those years of fighting against the Boogeyman and becoming a Guardian, being seen for the first time by a mortal, being accepted and loved by not just one but _ four _different families ever really happen? Or had he dreamed it?_  
  
Perhaps this was not a dream after all. Perhaps he had finally woken up.  
  
Biting back the ache in his chest at the realisation, he allowed the memories he’d thought were true but now saw were false – after all, such presumptions and miraculous events could not possibly be real – to wash away from him, returning his state of mind to the one it had taken on for a countless period of time.  
  
These wolves may be predators but he was not prey.  
  
Teeth bared in a snarl, he fought back, letting instinct take over rational thought as he became just as much a beast as they were. This endless pursuit needed to end once and for all. There was no point escaping when they would hunt him to the ends of the Earth.  
  
Sharp fangs tore into the flesh of his arm and he cried out in pain.  
  
He landed roughly in the snow, not wasting a single second before hefting himself back up onto all fours. The scenery seemed to have changed but he paid it no mind. There was very little light around him, and his eyes strained against the darkness, but he could still see the blackened silhouettes dancing around him. They were shouting and growling but the nonsense sounds fell on deaf ears. There was only one thought running through his mind, fuelling the adrenaline coursing through his veins.  
  
With a growl like the wolves’ own tearing from his throat he shot forwards, sinking nails into flesh and relishing in the cries of pain of the creature pinned beneath him as it crumpled to the frozen ground. It was about time they felt what it was like to be hunted relentlessly and without mercy. And if they got away from him, secluded themselves to lick their wounds like he had so often done in the past, well, he would find them again, like they had him, and make them regret that very first meeting, now so long ago, that had sealed their infinite cycle of predator and prey.   

 

* * *

 

 

It was just after midnight in North America where they knew Jack to currently be, but that didn’t change the fact that the lights had gone off – and this time it hadn’t been a mere social gathering. A swarm of Nightmares had been spotted near Hong Kong and they needed to do something about it before the children of the area suffered at their ha- uh, hooves.   
  
Understandably, Jack hadn’t turned up – he was likely asleep and therefore wouldn’t have been able to see the lights – so the rest of the Guardians had decided on the swiftest course of action; they would bring the meeting to the winter spirit.  
  
Of course, what they found when they arrived at Jack’s pond was the last thing any of them would have expected.  
  
Cries of pain and angry shouts filled their ears, along with a horrifying, inhuman growling. Without the moon lighting the sky, all the Guardians could see were dark shadows moving about; about a dozen or so two to three foot high silhouettes moving in a frenzy to either avoid or strike at another, hunched form about twice their size that was lashing out at them.  
  
The Guardians had no idea what was going on or how all this had started, but they sure as hell were going to put an end to it.  
  
Leaving the sleigh a safe distance away, they charged towards the fray, weapons out and ready in case they were needed.  
  
“That’s enough!” North cried out, startling the shadow figures, who moved back several steps.  
  
“What in blazes is goin’ on here?” Bunny asked gruffly, stepping forwards so he stood side-by-side with the Cossack.  
  
Only one of the figures – the largest one – hadn’t stood to attention at their arrival. It had released the shorter being it had been attacking and backed up against the trunk of a tree, growling threateningly. The Guardians could just make out the soft blue glow of its eyes. Bunny stepped towards it, confident he could hold his own against whatever it was.  
  
The growling grew in intensity with each step he took and, when he was no more than two or three steps away it sprung. He was unprepared for the sudden force that slammed into him, but while he stumbled, the near non-existent weight of his assailant was nowhere near enough to knock him down.  
  
The Pooka grabbed the blighter in his paws and held him back out of reach, the thing struggling like a mindless beast as it tried to free itself from its restraint. It was only then that he registered the cold; a body temperature far lower than he’d known any living creature to have and still be alive. Any creature, that is, except…  
  
“Sandy, light! Now!” he called out.  
  
A soft golden glow filled the clearing around them as Sandy sent a gentle stream of dream sand floating above their heads.  
  
Bunny’s eyes widened considerably, even despite the fact that he’d expected it. He heard prominent gasps from behind him and was vaguely aware of Tooth fluttering a bit closer, but his attention was focused solely on the spirit still writhing in his grasp.  
  
“Frostbite?” he gaped. Because even despite the dirt, the scratches and bruises, and the blood – most of which didn’t appear to be his – he would recognise the winter spirit anywhere.  
  
Jack continued on like he hadn’t heard a thing.  
  
“Jack, calm down! It’s us!”  
  
Frost was starting to creep along the edges of his fur but he held firm. That is, until Jack somehow managed to get his mouth close enough the Bunny’s paw to bite down. Hard. The rabbit cried out – more in surprise than actual pain (but the kid did have a sharp set of chompers on him) – instinctively loosening his grip. Slight as it was, it was more than enough for Jack, who manoeuvred his way to freedom, only to go for another shot at the Easter Bunny.  
  
“Sandy, knock ‘im out!” Bunny cried. He couldn’t think of what else to do; the kid just wasn’t seeing clearly and he didn’t want to have to hurt him.  
  
Jack pulled away, ducking as a ball of dream sand went hurtling overhead. He turned his unfocused gaze on the little man who had sent the ‘attack’ and, new target chosen, bounded towards him. He was intercepted halfway by a flustered Tooth, who grabbed him in a bear hug and pinned him to herself even as the two of them crashed heavily into the ground.  
  
“Guys, what do we do?!” she asked, struggling vainly to keep Jack down. Formidable warrior queen she may be, but Jack’s actions were mindless, more like he was running on pure animalistic instinct and a feverish need to get away and to fight back at the same time.  
  
“I do not know,” North said, sounding rather resigned.  
  
They’d never seen this kind of behaviour before in Jack and had no idea how to react to it. Sandy looked like he wanted to try the dream sand again but with Tooth so close, the risk of hitting her instead was far too high and they couldn’t afford to have her knocked out. A light bulb appeared above his head, his expression one of a sudden epiphany as he hurried skywards, a plane taking form around him.  
  
“Where’re you goin’, mate?” Bunny shouted up at him.  
  
A bunch of images flashed one after the other but at that distance and speed they could hardly be discerned. They just had to have faith that Sandy had an idea and would be back as soon as possible.   

 

* * *

 

 

When the Sandman returned, it was to find a rather dishevelled looking group of Guardians. The spirits Jack had been fighting when they’d arrived had long since fled but no one seemed to have noticed.  
  
Jack had managed to worm his way out of the Tooth Fairy’s hold and was now held in a sort of backwards bear-hug by North, his attempts at liberation futile against the Cossack’s strength.  
  
“Lleu?” Tooth said in recognition as the familiar summer spirit touched down beside Sandy.  
  
“At your service,” he grinned, bowing. “I hear our little Snowflake is in need of assistance.”  
  
“I think it’s us who’re in need of assistance,” Bunny muttered.  
  
Lleu raised a brow, turning his attention to the winter spirit still held by North. The other eyebrow rose to meet its brother. “When you conveyed he was in trouble,” Lleu began, looking down at his companion, “I didn’t think you actually meant he’d finally gone off his rocker.”  
  
“Are you here to help or not?” Bunny snapped, a little more harshly than he’d intended.  
  
“Yeah, yeah, keep your tail on,” Lleu rolled his eyes. “Where’s his stick?”  
  
The Guardians’ eyes widened as, for the first time, they noticed Jack’s staff’s absence. Everyone except North began searching the surrounding area for the old piece of wood.  
  
“Here it is!” Tooth called triumphantly, carrying the staff above her head as she flew back over to them.  
  
“Thank you,” Lleu said, taking it from her. He tested its weight in his palm, walked over to Jack, and, shifting his grip on the thing, whacked it with considerable force into the side of the kid’s face. An audible ‘smack’ resounded throughout the clearing, accompanied by gasps and angry protests from the Guardians.  
  
Jack’s head snapped to the side under the force of the blow, his eyes wide and his ceaseless movements halting. The winter spirit remained frozen in place for several seconds before blinking slowly, turning his gaze to the people standing around him and then, finally, settling on the large pair of arms squeezing him.  
  
“Um,” he said slowly, his voice rough and slightly strained. “What’s going on?”  
  
The Guardians heaved sighs of relief.  
  
“Welcome back to the land of the sane, Snow Cone,” Lleu smirked. “Although I can only really speak for myself.”  
  
Jack looked more confused than before.  
  
“Ya jumped us, mate,” Bunny frowned. “We heard a kafuffle goin’ on when we got here and found ya fighting off…” he trailed off, looking around them for the spirits that were long gone. “Well, I dunno who – the mooinjer veggey*, maybe – but you were actin’ like ya didn’t even recognise us.”  
  
“Oh,” Jack managed. “Well, I recognise you now and I don’t feel much like attacking anyone, so if you could put me down, North, I would appreciate it. I can’t really breathe.”  
  
“Oh! Sorry, Jack,” North said sheepishly, releasing his grip.  
  
The winter spirit took several deep breaths where he’d stumbled to the ground.  
  
“What happened, Jack?” Tooth asked, kneeling down in front of him.  
  
“I… I don’t really know,” Jack frowned at his knees. “I think I was dreaming about… something that happened a long time ago. I guess I didn’t really wake up until…” he paused, looking up at them with a look that clearly said he had no idea how he’d woken up.  
  
“Until I knocked some sense back into you,” Lleu happily finished for him, tossing his opposite his stick. The others glared at him.  
  
Jack deftly caught it, looking at it curiously. “Well, that would explain why my head hurts.”  
  
“Do you want to talk about it?” Tooth asked gently. “Your dream, I mean,” she elaborated at the confused expression he turned on her.  
  
“To be honest I’d just like to sleep,” Jack smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He had sagged slightly, the adrenaline finally leaving his system.  
  
“Come back to Pole,” North suggested. “All of you. Is safe from mysterious midnight attacks and in morning we can have meeting.”  
  
“Meeting?”  
  
“Yeah, mate, the reason we came here in the first place,” Bunny explained.  
  
“But it can wait,” Tooth told him. “I think we could all use some sleep.”  
  
Sandy somehow managed to convey that he would head over to Hong Kong to give the children some good dreams and stop any Nightmares he came across, and would meet them back at the Pole shortly.  
  
“No!” Jack protested. “If Pitch is up to something you shouldn’t go alone.”  
  
“Jack’s right, Sandy,” North agreed. “Is not safe.”  
  
“If it will appease you,” Lleu interrupted in an over-the-top attempt at an English accent, “I shall accompany mister Mansnoozie on his expedition.” He grinned, dropping the accent, “And then I’m heading back home before the fire spirits I was playing cards with decide they’re tired of waiting and burn my hand. I reckon I’ve got a good chance at winning this round,” he winked. The grin turned to a grimace, though, when he shifted, noticing the puddle of what had once been snow he was standing in. “And, uh, dry my feet.”  
  
Jack snorted, allowing Tooth to help get him back to his feet. “See you back at the Pole, Sandman. And Lleu,” he smiled at the older spirit. “Thanks.”  
  
“You’re welcome, Snowflake,” he nodded. “You ever need someone to knock you in the head you know who to call. You could try Ceres, too, sometime. I’m sure she’d jump at the opportunity.”  
  
“Ceres? _Jump?_ ” Jack gaped exaggeratedly. “Don’t know about that. But I’m sure you’re right about the hitting me thing.”  
  
Lleu laughed, taking off alongside Sandy.  
  
“Come on,” Bunny rolled his eyes, hefting the winter spirit over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.  
  
“Ah! Hey! I can walk, rabbit!”  
  
“Uh-huh,” Bunny replied absently as he trudged back over to the sleigh, a smiling Tooth and North following after him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *The mooinjer veggey are from Manx folklore and 'are rather inclined to be mischievous and spiteful' (-Wikipedia)  
> If any of you are confused, let me know and I'll be happy to explain or answer any questions. Won't put an explanation here cause the AN is already long.


	32. Not Worth Thinking About

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WolfieOwl (FFN) requested a follow up for the previous chapter, complete with angst and (hopefully understandable) answers, so here we are!

As they'd planned, the Guardians (sans Sandy) retired to the North Pole, sleeping off their midnight adventure. Sandy had turned up sometime in the night, slipping silently into a guestroom. When morning had come around, they'd had their meeting, hearing (or rather, interpreting) a statis report from Sandy. Apparently the Nightmare group hadn't been much of a threat and were easily destroyed with Lleu's help (whose heat had, apparently, turned them to glass and made them fall out of the sky to shatter on the ground below). As long as they kept an eye on Pitch's movements, everything should be fine.

With that out of the way, the Guardians found the more concerning matters of the previous night returning to the forefront of their minds, and Jack found himself on the receiving end of four inquisitive stares.

"What?" he asked self consciously, despite having a very good idea.

"You know what, mate," Bunny said pointedly.

"We're just worried about you, Sweet Tooth," Tooth added, sparing the Pooka a glance.

"I'm fine, guys, really," Jack told them. And it was the truth. He was pretty sure nothing like last night had happened before; at least, the part where people had turned up and he'd lashed out at them. In fact, he was pretty sure the whole incident wouldn't have even happened at all if whoever it was that had crept up on him hadn't. But he didn't think the others were going to believe him.

"Forgive us if we do not agree," North said with a small smile.

And he was right. Heaving a weary sigh he said, "Look, I already told you what happened. There's really not much more to tell."

"But there is more," Bunny pushed, sharing a look with Sandy.

They weren't going to let it drop, were they? Why did they always have to push him for answers? He knew they meant well and just wanted to get to know him better but he really hated talking about himself and his 300 years of solitude. And this was one of the darker of his stories.

"Why does it even matter?" he huffed, still trying to defer their questions.

"Because that wasn't normal, Frostbite, and we're still trying to understand what happened."

"Fine!" he snapped angrily, fed up with it all. "I spent some years out in a forest where no one could walk through me – sometimes it was just easier to disappear – and I guess I just… lost track of time. There was this wolf pack that lived there and I guess they must have thought I was impeding on their territory or something. Anyway, point is when you're being pursued by wolves with no one but yourself for company you can kinda… lose yourself.

"I was dreaming about that when the mooinjer veggey or whoever turned up and I guess I was still stuck in the dream. Happy?"   
  
He'd said it all rather quickly and without bothering to conceal his irritation. He didn't dare meet their gazes, staring down at his hands with a prominent frown on his face. In all honesty he wanted nothing more than to run back to his lake or somewhere secluded to calm down – they were just trying to help and really there was no reason to get so worked up over it – but he knew there was no point. They would follow him anyway and he didn't want to become more of a burden to them than he already was. And running away from your problems doesn't solve them, no matter how much you may want to.

"How long is 'some years'?" Tooth asked quietly, sounding very much like she didn't want to know.

Jack still refused to look up, thinking the answer over carefully. He hadn't lied when he'd said he'd lost track of time; but it hadn't really mattered at the time. Yes, he'd been neglecting his duties as a winter spirit, but it wasn't like the season depended on his presence nor did anyone miss him in his absence. He doubted they'd even noticed. But, if he remembered correctly, it had to at least have been… "I don't know; maybe 8-10 years. Give or take."

The silence that followed his words was long and uncomfortable. As the seconds ticked by, feeling much more like minutes or hours, Jack's discomfort grew until he couldn't take it anymore and chanced a glance at his fellow Guardians.

None of them were looking at him and all appeared somewhat stunned by his admission. Tooth's eyes were distinctly wet with unshed tears.

"We are sorry, Jack," North said, finally making eye contact with him.

"What for?" Jack asked in genuine confusion. That just seemed to upset them all the more.

"You should not have had to go through that."

Bemused, Jack hesitantly replied, "It's not like you can change the mentality of wolves."

"He means you shouldn't have had to feel like you needed to go into isolation in the first place," Bunny cut across, sounding angry but Jack was 90% sure it wasn't aimed at him.

He wasn't sure how to respond to that and it took him a moment to process a reply. It was true that he shouldn't have had to do what he did; if Manny had just spoken to him, told him of his purpose – heck, left him with his memories or at least returned them later (because he _did_ understand what impact those memories would have had on him if he'd never lost them and it was, in the end, perhaps better that he hadn't) – he probably wouldn't have felt as lonely and helpless as he had. As he still did, occasionally. He was aware that the Guardians could have reached out to him before the Man in the Moon had _told_ them to. And he was aware that if Manny hadn't, if the incident with Pitch had never happened, he would still be alone, wandering without truly knowing himself or his purpose. But, most importantly, he also knew that the past could not be changed. What was done was done and there really wasn't all that much point on dwelling on it or wallowing in regrets and what ifs.

"You have no reason to apologise," Jack told them. "It wasn't your fault – it _wasn't_ ," he said firmly, noting the way Tooth had opened her mouth to protest. "Besides, the past is the past, right? Being upset about it now isn't going to help anyone."

"But that doesn't mean it didn't happen, mate," Bunny refuted, interpreting Sandy's symbols and sounding like he whole-heartedly agreed.

"No, but it _does_ mean it's not worth thinking about. And honestly I'd like really not to," he said, pushing his chair back and getting to his feet. He gave them all a grin he hoped looked care-free. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some snow days to deliver."

"Jack," Tooth called softly after him, but he pretended he hadn't heard, slipping out the window and letting the wind catch him.

He wasn't alone anymore, and while it was important to remember your past to learn from it and to let it shape you into a better person, his particular story truly wasn't worth thinking or dwelling on. That trail of thought only led to pangs of loneliness and regrets for things that could have been or might have happened differently.

It wasn't worth thinking about.


	33. Misdiagnosis Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was requested by NorthernMage (FFN) who gave me the prompt: "...something where Jack gets sick (as in, seriously sick) and the Guardians find him hiding as he tries to recover?" We bounced a few ideas around and here is the first part of the end result. (I have come to realise I put Jack through a lot of crap. I think some of the other characters need some tough love soon too lol)

It started with a headache.

Now, to be fair, that was nothing unusual; after all, everyone gets headaches now and then, immortals being no exception. So Jack had played it off as a minor irritation and continued pouring his focus into the snow day he was making for the kids in South America.

It was when he'd finished and was admiring his handy work that he finally realised how hot he was. That _was_ strange. He was surrounded by his element in the middle of winter and he'd never felt warm like this after using his powers. His raised body temperature made his stomach roil queasily and he took a moment to lie in the snow and let it settle.

Jack and sickness was about as common as Ceres and giving compliments, but that didn't mean it didn't happen. Jack could remember a few occasions in the past where he'd been forced to take a few days off to let some minor illness (mostly colds (which was rather ironic, if you asked him)) pass. And, from the way his head was pounding and the unease of his stomach, he felt quite sure what he was suffering from now was the start of a stomach bug.

It was no big deal and he was far from worried. Last time he'd managed to catch such a thing he'd buried himself in a snowdrift for a while and slept it off. There was no reason this time around wouldn't be any different. All he had to do was find somewhere secluded so he wouldn't be disturbed and with enough snow to accommodate him.

Aconcagua wasn't too far away and was just about perfect, so Jack allowed the wind to gently lift him off the ground and began a slow journey towards the mountain.

By the time he reached one of the higher peaks, Jack's body was more than ready to release the contents of his stomach but he meticulously held back the urge, landing heavily in the snow. Any onlookers, if there had been any, would have considered it a crash landing. But there weren't any. So it wasn't.

On all fours, his staff resting beside him within easy reach, Jack began digging into the fluffy ice until he had created an indent just deep enough for him to curl up in. It was a small matter of making himself comfortable and covering his entire body (with the sole exception of his head) with snow before he was content to sleep off the stomach bug. Happy in the knowledge that he wasn't afraid (and therefore could expect to sleep in peace without any interruptions from Pitch) and that he had done enough work to allow for almost two weeks off (not that he thought he'd need that long), Jack allowed his eyes to slide closed and let the quiet whispers of the wind to lull his tired body to sleep.

 

***

 

When Jack next opened his eyes, it was to a hot, aching body and dampness. The snow he'd buried himself in was partially melted, kept in at least partially solid form by the wind and wilderness alone. He was pretty sure he had a fever. It would explain the fogginess of his head and why he felt so hot. His stomach was still protesting, but there was nothing in it to expel.

Blinking in an attempt to keep his eyes open, Jack gazed up at the full moon in the night sky looking down at him. Without a word, he rolled over onto his side, burrowing down deeper into the coldness and letting sleep reclaim him.

 

* * *

 

No one had seen Jack Frost in a week.

Now, this wasn't something they felt they should be panicking about; Jack was a free spirit who barely stayed in one place for more than a few hours. It was only to be expected that he would vanish every now and again. Of course, Sandy had taken it upon himself to keep his eyes open for the winter spirit, often allowing Jack to accompany him on his dream delivery when they did meet, and the tooth fairies had been known to occasionally take an impromptu break to chat with (read: drool at the teeth of) the boy. But neither Sandy nor Tooth's helpers (nor the fairy Queen herself) had seen their youngest for almost seven days.

It wasn't enough to make them panic, but that didn't mean they couldn't be worried. The kid did have a knack for getting into trouble, after all.

"He is not at lake?" North asked, partially distracted as he went over a clipboard one of the yetis had handed him.

Sandy shook his head, no. And he'd checked nearly every night. He'd decided to share his and Tooth's concern with their unofficial leader, hoping the holiday figure would have some idea of where Jack might be or help them locate him. He wondered briefly if the other Guardians' 'mothering' bothered the winter spirit. But then he decided he didn't really care – they were worried and it wasn't like they could switch off the feeling because the subject of their concern was a little overwhelmed.

"Hmm," North handed the clipboard back to the yeti he'd received it from before moving off across the workshop, Sandy not straying far behind. "Perhaps South Pole? Doesn't he go there on off season?"

That would be good and fine – and would explain why both he and the fairies hadn't seen him – except it _was the middle of winter_ ; a point he conveyed to his friend.

"Point taken. But I do not know where else boy may be," North said, looking increasingly concerned. "We are probably over-thinking, but better safe than sorry, no? I will go out in sleigh to search. You and Toothy keep looking, too. I will contact Bunny."

Sandy nodded in understanding and gratitude. With a final wave, he headed off to once more return to his duties, leaving North with his.

 

* * *

 

Even with all of them searching no sign had been found of Jack. It was like he'd just vanished off the face of the Earth. They'd asked other spirits they'd happened across but not even they had caught sight of the youngest Guardian. As the days passed one by one, each agonisingly slowly, their concern increased until the search for Jack had taken over most of the time that should have been reserved for their responsibilities.

Baby Tooth sighed to herself as she replaced a molar under a child's pillow with a shiny coin. She had been taking the long route home after each tooth she collected, desperately searching for the winter spirit she'd grown so attached to. If her Queen knew about the little hunts, she didn't mention it – except to ask her and her sisters if any of them had seen or heard anything at all.

Gripping the small piece of enamel in her tiny hands, she zipped southwards, intending to check a few of the snowier places in South America on her way back to the Tooth Palace. Mount Aconcagua stood proudly before her and she halted mid-flight.

There wouldn't be any children on the tall mountain – or anyone at all, really – but maybe, just maybe, a winter spirit would go there for a break or to make a blizzard or something. There were no dark clouds that she could see (not that she could really see all that much at all in the darkness) but that didn't mean Jack wouldn't be there, as unlikely as it was. She didn't have all that much hope of finding anything – all the other mountains she and her sisters had checked had been Jack-free – but it was still worth a quick look at the very least.

Zipping through the peaks, Baby Tooth kept her eyes and ears open for a familiar patch of blue or the sound of carefree laughter. But all she could see was the white of snow and the dark rocks and all she could hear was the billowing of the wind.

A particularly strong gust caught her from behind, tumbling her forwards in an out of control manner, and it was all she could do to keep her grip on the child's tooth still clasped in her hands. If she lost it here, she would be hard pressed to find it again amongst all the white snow and howling wind.

Just as she'd managed to right herself, another gust sent her off balance once more, sending her down towards one of the peaks. Struggling against the force, Baby Tooth tried to get back up where the wind was less strong and less likely to impale her against the rock face (that had already happened once and she had no intention of letting it happen again). But the wind continuously persisted in blowing her down, no matter how far she managed to travel.

It was strange, the way the wind seemed to be working as if it had a mind of its own, not contouring around peaks or following the weather patterns at all. The tiny fairy froze as the thought struck her. How often had she seen Jack playing with the wind like it was an old friend? How often had all been silent and then he would call and suddenly a breeze would pick up?

A surge of hope rippled through her tiny body and she called out to the wind, asking it to direct her; no longer fighting it, but letting it carry her where it wanted her to go.

As soon as she was close enough to the snowy side of the mountain the wind let up, more of a gentle breeze than the gale-force it had been a moment ago. Baby Tooth frowned, scanning the endless white for a sign of the wind's constant companion. But no blue hoodie stood out to her, and no welcoming voice reached her ears.

A soft blow shifted her gently forwards, the wind encouraging her not to give up her search.

And then she spotted it.

A mop of messy white hair, nearly completely camouflaged in the snow, rustled with the touch of the icy wind. Only the side of the face of the pale teenager it was attached to could be seen, and even then more snow was blown onto him, burying him further. If things kept up, he would be completely concealed in no time.

Squeaking in shock, Baby Tooth secured the tooth she was carrying to a small belt around her waist and flew the short distance between herself and the boy. She began trying to brush away the snow, ignoring the way it numbed her hands, pleased when the wind tried to aid her in her efforts. In minutes she'd uncovered enough of the boy's face to confirm her suspicions. It was Jack.

Baby Tooth knew she needed to send for help – there was no way she could completely dig out the winter spirit on her own and even if she could she knew she wouldn't be able to carry him. The boy was unconscious and his face was flushed, despite his surroundings. There were dark lines under his eyes and a sheen of sweat on his forehead, and he didn't so much as twitch despite her prodding. She couldn't leave him to get help; by the time she got back he might have completely disappeared under the snow and then she'd never find him again. But staying where she was wouldn't help Jack, either. Maybe if she could wake him up, she'd be able to get him to fly with her somewhere less likely for him to be buried alive. That way she could get help without losing or feeling like she was abandoning him.

Plan set in mind, Baby Tooth pressed both hands against Jack's too-warm cheek, urging him to open his eyes. _Wake up_ , she willed him. _Please wake up._

The winter spirit didn't stir, despite her cajoling. She tried again, moving closer to his ear. Still nothing. She didn't want to hurt him but she was running out of options. Convincing herself that she was doing it for his own good, Baby Tooth poked Jack in the cheek with her sharp nose.

A low groan gave her hope and she fluttered backwards so she could get a good look at the boy's face. Slowly, glazed eyes opened, seemingly only partially focused.

"Baby Tooth?" Jack slurred.

Baby Tooth chirped encouragingly, gesturing for him to get up.

"What are you doing here?"

Baby Tooth huffed; she didn't have time for stupid questions. Flying forwards, she grabbed the hood of his jumper and tugged upwards, trying to make her intentions as clear as possible. Jack watched her for a moment, clearly confused, before pushing himself up weakly, sending snow cascading off him like some kind of half-frozen waterfall. He fished around in the snow for a second before pulling his staff out from beside him, using it to keep himself propped up in a sitting position.

Well, they were halfway there, she mused.

"What's wrong, Baby Tooth?" he asked, still looking as though he couldn't figure out what was going on.

Baby Tooth flew up a little bit, gesturing down the mountain a bit, hoping he would take the hint.

"You want me to go down there?"

 _Yes!_ She nodded enthusiastically.

"Okay," Jack said hoarsely, using his staff to support his wobbly journey to his feet. He stumbled once he was upright but managed to catch himself before he could fall back down. His eyes still seemed unfocused, but he was cooperating and Baby Tooth wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

As Jack walked unsteadily over to the drop, Baby Tooth took up her perch on his shoulder, unwilling to even risk losing him again. Tightening his grip on his staff, Jack didn't even hesitate before throwing himself off the peak. Baby Tooth twittered in concern as he wobbled in the air, even as the wind caught them and directed them downwards.

They'd made it about half-way before the current holding them up gave out beneath them. Jack plummeted towards the snowy landscape below, somehow managing to catch himself before they could hit the unforgiving ground.

"Sorry, Baby Tooth," he managed, his voice barely more than a whisper. "I don't feel very good."

Their descent would be better described as sporadic falling and catching than a smooth glide, but they managed to land without too much drama or pain. Baby Tooth flew down to rest in the snow before the winter spirit as he doubled over on his hands and knees and proceeded to cough up an alarming amount of water.

He glanced hazily up at her, their eyes locking briefly, before his eyes slid shut and he collapsed on his side, narrowly avoiding landing in what he'd brought up. Baby Tooth cried out to him, trying to see if he was alright (which, really, answered itself), but the boy didn't stir.

Glancing around, she noted there was less snow here than there had been further up and there wasn't a single cloud in the sky. Figuring it would be okay to leave him temporarily, she made a beeline for the nearest town, determined to find as many of her sisters as possible to help get Jack back where he would be taken care of.


	34. Misdiagnosis Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. It was hard to write without making it feel too much like The Way the Cold Burns. And then I got sick (but that might be karma)

Nicholas St. North wasn't sure which emotion to settle on when the hum of wings preceded the arrival of a small swarm of Tooth's fairies, a limp Jack Frost and staff between them. There was a great deal of relief that they had finally located the boy, but also concern and traces of fear. Jack looked like a puppet the way he dangled lifelessly, the only sign that he was alive at all the shallow movements of his chest with each breath he took.

The fairies, clearly tired after having flown such a distance with the winter spirit in tow, moved immediately over to a couch against the far wall, depositing their charge down with great care. By the time North had removed the distance between himself and Jack, most of the mini fairies had taken the teeth the others had collected and were shooting off again, likely back to the Tooth Palace. The ones who remained fluttered down to land on Jack's chest, watching him with matching expressions of concern.

Up close, North found concern start to smother relief. Jack's usually pale skin was flushed, a light sheen of sweat dampening his forehead. He was struck momentarily by a memory of the way the boy looked when the summer spirit had carted him all the way through the endless snow and ice, but this was nowhere near as bad. Thank Manny.

What that left him with were a number of lesser causes that could have contributed to Jack's current state. If he hadn't brought it upon himself (and he really didn't want a repeat of that fiasco), the most obvious conclusion was that the boy was sick.

It wasn't common for an immortal to get sick, but it still happened. They were immortal, not immune. What that meant was that they were bound to recover eventually, but that didn't cancel out the potential for irreversible damage. Ergo, illness in an immortal could be just as worrying as it was in a mortal, perhaps more so; the victim could find themselves suffering from less than desirable side-effects for the rest of time.

Being careful not to jostle him too much, North gently lifted Jack from the couch, unintentionally dislodging the fairies as he did so.

"Phil!" he called as he and Jack's entourage passed the yeti in question. "Activate the Aurora Borealis!" He figured the mini fairies would inform their Queen upon their return to the Palace, but Sandy and Bunny would likewise want to know their youngest had been found.

Phil garbled a reply, heading swiftly toward the Globe to carry out the order.

The guest room North selected for Jack was situated within close distance to the Globe Room and kitchen so that, even if they did not stay by the boy's side (though he highly doubted any of them would leave Jack by himself even for a minute), they would be within calling distance should they be needed. North had once offered the winter spirit his own room at the Pole, even a permanent home, but as he'd suspected Jack had politely declined. The boy had always been a free spirit, going wherever the wind carried him and never staying in one place for more than a few days, if that. It didn't mean he hadn't been disappointed at the refusal, however.

As soon as Jack was laid neatly on the bed, the fairies retook their previous perch. North couldn't help but smile to himself as he watched them. He strode over to the window and hauled it open, allowing a stiff breeze of dancing snowflakes into the room. He was sure there would be snow on every surface within the hour. But if it would make Jack more comfortable it was a small sacrifice to make. Besides, he could just get the yetis to clean it up later.

What were the basics of taking care of someone when they were sick? Rest, plenty of liquids, staying warm, probably medicine depending on the sickness… Well, Jack was unconscious already, so that was rest already in play. He couldn't well drink anything while he was asleep, so liquids would have to wait (unless it got to the point where he required an IV drip). Staying warm… that was an interesting one. _Normally_ you'd want the patient to stay warm. But Jack was a winter spirit. Ergo, warm = bad. He'd already opened the window to let in some of the cold outside air, but a bucket of ice water and a washcloth certainly wouldn't hurt, especially if Jack had a fever like North suspected. As for medicine, well, they couldn't be sure what to give him until they figured out what was wrong.

"I am going to get water," North announced, gaining the attention of the fairies. "You will keep eye on him?"

Baby Tooth saluted, giving a little chirp of affirmation. North nodded contentedly, slipping from the room with a great deal of stealth for someone of his size.

 

* * *

 

He was far too warm; borderline hot. There was something soothing pressed against his forehead and a refreshing chill to the air but it did very little for the heat he was finding himself affronted with. It was also rather hard to breathe, he noted absently. Not so much that he _couldn't_ breathe or that he _wasn't_ , but more that he couldn't seem to take in enough. Sort of like trying to breathe through a sponge.

…Where he'd pulled that comparison from he had no idea.

As consciousness continued to pull at him, he became aware of the general ache to his body. He felt not unlike one giant bruise, with a bruise on the bruise in his chest, and his head was pounding like someone was going at it with a jackhammer. Heh. Jackhammer. Jack-hammer. His name was Jack.

He was still smiling at his own mental joke when words that weren't his thoughts reached his ears.

"Jack? Are you awake?"

He recognised the voice, he was sure of it. It was soft and sweet, belonging to someone equal parts kind and beautiful. It felt… wrong to hear that underlining hint of worry there, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out why.

Something nagged at the back of his mind and he realised he hadn't provided the voice with an answer. His throat felt rather dry, and he doubted he'd be able to grind out more than a grunt if he tried to talk so he opted instead for opening his eyes. That way he'd at least be able to figure out why the voice was so familiar.

The first attempt was a disaster. Light assaulted his retinas and he quickly scrunched his eyes shut again with a hiss. Well, at least the voice had an answer to its question now. The sound of movement to his left pushed him to try again, and this time he was pleased to find the light wasn't quite as severe.

A blurry bluish green thing, which he assumed was the source of the voice, slowly began to become more focused until he could make out exactly who it was.

"Tooth?" he asked in confusion, his voice like two stones grinding together. The attempt at talking tickled something in the back of his throat and he launched up into a sitting position, breaking out into a coughing fit that stole what little air he'd been thus far managing to get and jostled his body painfully.

"Easy, Sweet Tooth," Tooth said calmly, pressing something to his lips after the fit had subsided. "Here, drink this, but take it slow."

It was only when the first drop hit his tongue that he realised what it was; a glass of water. A glass of water that must have been sent from heaven because he was sure water had never tasted so good before. It soothed his painful throat and, for all of five seconds, allowed him to breathe a little easier. But even with his mind slightly clearer than it had been a moment ago, the confusion lingered. How had he gotten to the Pole (because he was pretty sure he wasn't at the Tooth Palace and like hell he would be at the Warren, especially since there were small piles of snow scattered around the room)? The last thing he remembered was being mostly buried in snow on Aconcagua. There was a bit of a distance between there and here and he was at a loss as to how he'd closed it without any recollection whatsoever.

"How are you feeling?" the Tooth fairy asked, placing the now empty glass on a small bedside table.

"'M fine," but it sounded like a lie even to his own ears. And if the look he was receiving was anything to go by, she didn't buy it either.

"You're hardly fine," she frowned disapprovingly.

"…Okay," he relented. "I've been better. But it's no big deal… just a stomach bug. Nothing to worry about," and then he promptly broke into another coughing fit. _Wonderful_.

"I think this might be something a little more than a stomach bug, Jack."

She was probably right. His stomach was feeling a little queasy but that was probably because he was too hot. The pain was more centred around his head and chest. Probably just a cold or something, then. And oh the irony of that.

He hadn't realised he'd spoken aloud until Tooth said, "I think it's worse than a cold, too. When you cough, does it feel like you're trying to bring something up?"

"…I don't know. Maybe?" Why was that even important?

She began looking through a bunch of small brown bottles perched beside the glass from before that he'd only just realised were there. Finding the one she was looking for, Tooth took off the cap and measured out some of the red liquid. He knew it would be gross even from a distance.

"Here, drink this," she directed, holding the liquid out to him.

Jack eyed it warily. "What is it?"

She was looking at him strangely, as if he'd asked a stupid question. But he thought it had been perfectly valid.

"It's medicine," she said slowly. "It'll help with your cough."

Now it was his turn to stare at her. They had stuff for that? Wow the modern world was incredible. Back when he'd been alive… well, not so much 'alive' (because he was technically alive now) but before he'd been 'Jack Frost' they'd had similar stuff, but it was expensive. They'd made do with water and rest and for the most part they'd pulled through. Well, his family had, anyway. There had been this one kid who'd caught something and hadn't managed to–

Jack cut off his internal musing when he realised Tooth was still waiting for him to drink the red 'medicine'. Tentatively, he reached out to take it from her, as if expecting it to lash out and bite him. Bringing it up to his lips he downed it in one gulp.

And, oh, it wasn't medicine, it was poison! Gagging at the foul taste that seemed to burn on its way down, he coughed, hoping there was still time to bring it back up before the damage was done. Something else was pushed into his face and he leaned away, not wanting any more medicine. Ever. But his body betrayed him, too weak to fight off the gentle hands that forced the second liquid down.

He could have breathed a huge sigh of relief when he realised it was just water. If he could get that much air in, that is. The water didn't help much to remove the awful taste of the poi– medicine, but it was better than nothing and he gulped it down greedily.

"Better?" Tooth asked once the glass was empty (which confused him, because hadn't he already drunken all of it when he first woke up?).

He hummed, which could have been a positive or negative response, but Tooth didn't push the matter.

"Have you never had medicine before?"

"Are you sure that was medicine?" he croaked.

She looked like she was trying to restrain a smile. She was doing a poor job of it, if that was the case. "Try to get some sleep, Jack."

He didn't protest, letting himself sink back down onto the pillow and shutting his tired eyes.

 

* * *

 

Sandy was on Jack-watch when the shivering started. It was subtle at first; so much so that he thought he'd imagined it. But then the small shaking spasms had increased until they were easily noticeable, but all Sandy found himself capable of doing was staring.

Why was a winter spirit, of all beings, looking for all the world like he was _cold?_ And it wasn't just the shivering that had caught his attention. Jack's breath was more laboured than it had been, sounding like the boy couldn't draw in enough air.

They needed to keep him cold – heat would only make things worse – but it was a hard prospect to keep in mind when Jack kept giving off signs of needing to warm up.

At something of a loss, Sandy gathered some of the snow that had piled around the room and added it to the collection already on the winter spirit. It was doing wonders in keeping his fever down, but he wasn't sure how much it would help the sudden onset of chills.

The last time Jack had been ill, he'd known exactly what needed to be done. If they'd listened to him then he would have gotten better a lot sooner. Maybe this was a similar case. Maybe Jack knew what to do to heal himself but was unable to do anything about it.

It was a strange feeling knowing you had to go against what your natural talent was. His sand was designed for putting people to sleep with good dreams, not waking them up. So he resorted to the old fashioned way. Gently shaking Jack's shoulder, Sandy tried to wake the younger spirit, if only just for a moment to ask. But Jack gave no signs of regaining consciousness, only curling in on himself tighter.

Sandy bit back a sigh and reclined in his chair. He would just have to wait until the boy woke naturally, which was probably for the best. The kid looked like he could use all the sleep he could get.

 

* * *

 

The next time Jack awoke it was under the watchful eye of Bunny. The Pooka had insisted the kid get as much fluids into him as he could; after having spent so long asleep, there was no doubt he was in need of them. Jack had been less than lucid the entire time, gazing around in something of a daze. Bunny had managed to get a few bites of food into him before he'd nodded off again, but not before a nice coughing fit that made him sound like he was trying to cough up a lung.

It had been a few days since then, and Jack had yet to wake up for a third time. They were all in varying degrees of worry from fretting (Tooth) to denial of said worry despite clear anxiousness (Bunny). Nothing they did would rouse the winter spirit, and they'd tried everything they could think of.

Bunny grumbled to himself as he waded through the freezing snow that littered the room. It was starting to resemble the environment outside more than a bedroom. It was his turn to go on 'Jack-watch' as they'd started calling it, and North really looked like he could use the break if the way he was slouching in his chair was anything to go by.

"You look like you could use a rest, mate," Bunny said, coming to a stop beside the large man. "There been any change?"

"No, he is still same," North sighed, pulling himself to his feet. "I think you're right about rest, though."

"I'll keep an eye on 'im."

North nodded and left the room with a tired yawn as Bunny took the previously occupied chair, making himself as comfortable as he could and settling back for a few uneventful hours.

A raspy breath shattered the silence that had descended over the room in the last hour or so. Bunny was alert in an instant, but he didn't need his sensitive hearing to notice the struggling breaths of the prone spirit covered in snow on the bed.

"Jack?" Bunny frowned, leaning forwards. But the boy was still clearly unconscious, even despite the horrible sound each breath made. This was definitely more than a mere cold or stomach bug. It sounded almost like the kid couldn't get enough air in regardless that each breath was heavy.

Bunny carefully placed one paw under Jack and the other over, pulling him slowly up into a sitting position, using a combination of snow and pillows to keep him that way. The kid's breathing sounded a little better, but not much. He really didn't know enough about medical procedures, especially those for humans, let alone a winter spirit. Where were the first-aid yetis when you needed them?

Jack's brows were pinched in a frown as though he were in some kind of pain or the throes of a nightmare. Bunny pulled open the top drawer on the bedside table and pulled out a small pouch of dream sand Sandy had provided them with in case they needed it while he was out delivering dreams. A pinch was all it took for Jack to relax, his expression neutral once more.

Bunny sighed, rubbing a tired paw down his face. He was starting to wonder if the kid wasn't worth the trouble and worry (not that he'd ever admit it) he put them through.

"You're a bloody magnet for disaster, you know that?"

 

* * *

 

Jack didn't want to wake up; that was his first thought. He knew he was right on the edge of consciousness, and that now that he'd acknowledged it there was no turning back, but the knowledge of what was likely waiting on the other side of closed eyelids was a tad off-putting. He knew his body was going to ache and that there would be lingering pain and probably also a little dehydration, and in his opinion that was all the more reason to stay asleep.

It was, of course, then that he became fully lucid. Eyes still shut, Jack let himself take in the stiffness of his body and the nearly non-existent pang in his chest. His throat and mouth were nowhere near as dry and sore as he was expecting. That was a plus, he supposed. He could also breathe a lot easier and it no longer felt like a struggle to gain enough oxygen. It would be safe to conclude, then, that the worst was over.

It took more convincing than he would have liked to attempt to open his eyes half-way (he'd learnt from past experience) and was not surprised to find he was still in the same room as he'd been in the last time he'd awoken. He was sitting up in the bed, piles of snow all around making it hard to identify if he was actually inside or not, and to his left he could see Tooth sleeping with her head on an awkward angle. Her neck was probably going to hurt when she woke up.

He lifted a hand towards her but froze when something pulled on his arm. Very slowly and with an educated guess of what he was likely to find forming in his mind, Jack let his gaze fall to the origin of the pain.

He knew it. A needle.

It was, of course, attached to a tube attached to a clear bag of liquid beside the bed but despite the fact that it was obviously important and that he should probably leave it where it was, he found himself reacting in much the same way as the last time.

"What is it with you people and jabbing me with things?!" he cried, his voice hoarse from lack of use, as he pulled the offending object from his arm (more gently than last time).

Tooth startled at the sudden vocal outcry, blinking away the last tendrils of sleep as she locked eyes with him. It took her a moment to register exactly what was happening but when she did, her blank expression formed into a scowl.

"Jack! You shouldn't pull that out!"

"Why? What is it?" he asked, just as irritated as she sounded.

"It's an IV drip, it's been keeping you hydrated."

"That doesn't mean I want it poking into me!"

Tooth's eyes widened in realisation and she blinked owlishly. "You're awake!" she stated in relief and joy, flinging her arms around him in a tight embrace.

Jack jumped, wincing at the pressure on his chest. "Tooth… need air."

"Oh! Sorry," she smiled sheepishly, releasing him. "It's just we were so worried and you were just getting worse and never waking up and… how are you feeling?"

"Better," he said truthfully. "Sorry for worrying you." He paused to let her words sink in. "I guess I went into a hibernation-state to sleep it off."

"Well, that would explain why we couldn't wake you," Tooth smiled, but there were still lingering traces of concern in her eyes.

"I'm fine, really."

"The others will want to know," Tooth said, letting her wings lift her off the chair. "I'll be right back."

 

* * *

 

It ended with an admission. For Jack it hadn't been an all too hard one to make, but it was awkward with the way that the other Guardians wouldn't stop staring at him like they expected him to keel over at any moment. For the Guardians it wasn't quite so easy. It was hard to hear and sent them all on a one-way all-expenses paid guilt trip. Because, when asked why he hadn't come to them from the beginning, the answer Jack gave was simply that he hadn't thought about it. After 300 years solo he'd never had anyone to depend on so it was sort of ingrained to just deal with things the only way he knew how and the way that had always worked in the past.

The hardest part to swallow was that he shouldn't have had to have gone through all those years without any kind of support; they should have been there for him and the knowledge that they weren't and they'd let him down – let down a _child_ , even an immortal one – was painful to recognise. But nowhere near as painful as they suspected Jack's 300 years of invisibility and neglect had been.

And so they'd made themselves and Jack a promise. They promised that what had happened with the winter spirit would never happen again. He wasn't alone anymore and he needed to know that; needed to know that he could depend on them and that they _wanted_ to be able to help him.

But that was something Jack had already known, even if it was only on a subconscious level. They'd already had many conversations like this in the past, and it wasn't his unwillingness to lose his independence that restrained him from taking them up on the offer, although that was, admittedly, part of it. It was mostly that he just didn't realise that there even was an option. 300 years of habits are hard to break, after all.

But he had promised to try and they had promised to be there. And that was all any of them could ask for.


	35. Swallowing Pride

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kinda mixed two requests for this one. Shamangirl1 wanted some Jack & May/Ceres bonding and Cag asked for one where Ceres is in trouble and Jack is the only one who can help. (Both FFN readers). A May-Jack bonding chapter might turn up soon, too.
> 
> No wolves were harmed in the making of this chapter.

It was rare for Jack to spend any time at all away from Antarctica during autumn, but now that it was less likely for him to get chewed out for being there, he figured it was the perfect opportunity to admire the many colours of the season before it all bleached to white when winter arrived. He just had to make sure he didn't accidentally freeze anything and get continuous updates from the woodland sprites of Ceres' location so he could continue to avoid her.

He was just about to sit down under one of the trees around his pond when a leaf riddled wind swept over him, mingling its contents with the snowflakes that danced in his own which sprang up to meet it.

"Wind?" he frowned. The chilly breeze ruffled his hair in response. "No, I meant the other wind. Ceres' wind. What are you doing here? Ceres isn't here is she?"

The less biting wind wrapped itself around him, beckoning him upwards. But it wasn't his wind; it couldn't carry him.

"What's wrong?" Jack tried again, despite knowing the air current couldn't communicate in words. The wind continued to tug at him relentlessly until he sighed and conceded to letting his colder wind carry him where its autumn counterpart wanted him to go.

There were many possible explanations that he had considered during the brief journey, but what he saw upon being deposited on the leaf-strewn ground was not one of them.

"Ceres?" he blinked owlishly, taking in the scene. He couldn't see her face from where he was standing, but he would recognise that orange and brown outfit anywhere.

"Jack," came the reply, and he could have sworn there was a groan mixed in with the word.

"Um…" honestly he had no idea what to say. If it had been anyone other than Ceres he probably would have laughed. As it was, he held his tongue and cautiously made his way over to where the autumn spirit was lying.

"I suppose I should be grateful that someone came, even if it is you," Ceres continued, ignorant of Jack's internal musing. "But considering you're just standing there…"

"Oh, right, sorry," Jack apologised, trying to figure out the best way to deal with the situation. "How did you end up under a tree branch, anyway?"

"It fell on me, how else?" she snapped. "Now are you going to help me or not?"

Jack stuck his hands under the branch half-crushing Ceres and heaved with all the strength he could muster. "It won't budge," he ground out, slackening his hold.

"Wonderful," Ceres drawled.

"I could go get help," Jack suggested, turning his gaze northwards; the yetis would no doubt be able to lift the offending limb with ease. "But it might take a while."

"…It's getting dark and there are wolves in this forest," she muttered. Which was the equivalent of saying she was anxious and didn't want to be left alone.

She wasn't wrong, though. The sun was starting to set and there was no way he'd be able to make it to the Pole and come back with the yetis before night fell completely. If he were in her position he would have been feeling the same thing. Besides, he knew all about how it felt to be alone.

"Is there anyone close by that could help?" he asked after a moment.

"Apparently you; I sent the wind to find someone and you're the only one who's turned up."

"Oh," Jack sighed, moving towards her head and sitting under the tree the branch had fallen from. "Then it looks like we'll just have to wait until morning."

Ceres groaned, letting her head fall onto the ground.

"Maybe I could dig you out."

"It's worth a try I suppose. But if you freeze any part of me–"

"Yes, yes, you'll threaten me with something you can't accomplish while stuck under there," Jack rolled his eyes, shifting closer. He didn't have a shovel or anything to dig with (and like hell he was going to make anything out of ice), so he was left with no choice but to use his hands. Placing his staff beside him, he got to work, scraping at the hard, nearly-frozen dirt. This was going to take a while.

 

* * *

 

Progress was slow and he'd been at it for at least two hours with very little to show for it when a howl split the chilled air.

"Did you hear that?" Jack whispered, halting his digging and scanning the darkness.

"I wish I hadn't," Ceres replied, voice equally hushed.

Another howl killed the silence, this time closer. Jack slowly rose to his feet, grabbing his staff in worn fingers and turning around in place as he kept his senses open for any hint of a threat. The wolves held the advantage, what with their night vision and larger numbers; especially since Jack wasn't just protecting himself. Ceres couldn't very well fight when she couldn't move, after all.

No other sounds pierced the night but Jack wasn't going to let his guard down for a second. Ceres was straining her eyes, turning her head as far as she could from her prone position.

"Can you see anything?" she asked.

"No," Jack frowned, not looking at her.

A low growl preceded the snarling of sharp teeth as several shadowy forms launched themselves from the trees all around them. Jack quickly jumped back so the tree trunk was to his back with Ceres directly in front of him so he could be sure nothing could creep up on either of them.

The wolves slunk forwards, teeth bared and eyes flashing. Jack held his staff out in front of him defensively, launching a blast of ice at the closest figure. There was a high pitched cry, alerting him to the fact that he'd hit his target.

The other wolves hesitated, before seemingly coming to a decision and increasing the speed of their approach.

"Yell at me later," Jack called out before swinging his staff in one sweeping motion, creating a wall of ice around them. "That should buy us a little time," he said, darting over to the autumn spirit and continuing his attempt to dig her out, futile as it was. He didn't know how long he could fight off the wolves and there was certainly no way he could do it without ruining autumn for the area, not that that was really a priority right at that moment.

Ceres was watching the wolves with wide eyes, not even mentioning the ice. Jack scraped at the ground feverishly, desperate to get her out before the ice either melted or the wolves figured out they could go around it.

"It's not working," he growled, glaring at the beasts starting to move along the wall. It would only be a matter of moments before they were upon them again. Jack snatched up his staff, completely encircling them in a wall of ice. "Wait here," he smirked, trying to lighten the mood.

"Where are you going?!"

"I'm gonna see if I can chase them off."

Deciding it would be safer to stay airborne, Jack hovered just high enough that the wolves wouldn't be able to jump up and grab him but not so high that he lost sight of them in the dark. Each blast of ice he shot was aimed to hit close to the wolves but not strike them directly. With each near thing they jumped backwards, sometimes sliding around a bit when their paws stepped on slick patches. It took a little while but eventually they finally grew tired of being antagonised and ran off back into the dark cover of the trees.

Jack stayed in the air for a few more moments to be absolutely certain they'd gone before dropping back down beside Ceres.

"You okay?" he asked her.

"As okay as anyone can be when they've got a thick piece of tree crushing their upper body," she huffed.

"Well, at least the wolves are gone. For now, at least," he knelt down and started digging again, slower this time now that he didn't have to worry about being mauled. "Now let's see about getting you out of here."

"Stop it!"

"Huh?" Jack raised a brow, not ceasing his digging. Man, Bunny would have been really useful right then.

"Stop digging, damn it!"

"What? Why?" Jack asked incredulously, finally listening to her.

"Look at your hands!"

Jack turned his attention to the appendages in question. It was hard to see in the dark, but he was sure they were well worn and bleeding a little from the prolonged scraping of hard ground. "…What about them?"

"What ab–" Ceres cut herself off, sounding like she was on the verge of screaming at him. "Are you as dense as all that ice you spread? Or are you just blind? Stop digging before you completely destroy them; it's not working anyway."

Jack stared at her, lost for words. He didn't want to tell her that ice wasn't really all that dense. "So you'd rather I just leave you under there, then?"

"No, but I don't want you to cripple yourself in the process, idiot!"

"…Since when do you even care?" She'd helped him out more than once, and even though her excuses at the time had been poor and thinly veiled lies, she'd at least had excuses that could be believed if you didn't look too deeply into things. But there was no excuse this time. She was openly showing concern for him (despite the insults).

Ceres turned away with a sour expression. "Mother would not be happy if you were unable to undertake your duties because you'd worn your hands to the bone."

It was a poor explanation and the way she'd said it made it clear to both of them that it wasn't the truth but Jack let it slide, allowing the older woman to keep her pride.

"What do you want me to do, then?" he asked after a moment.

"I don't know. Just… just stop digging."

 

* * *

 

Hardly any words passed between them throughout the rest of the night, but the silence wasn't completely awkward. Both kept their ears open for sounds of wolves or other predators getting close, but they weren't bothered again. By the time the sun peaked once more over the horizon they were both tired; in body and mind.

"Will you be okay for a while?" Jack asked, watching the beautiful stretch of colours painted on the sky. "I don't think the ice will melt for a few hours at least, and I doubt the wolves will be coming back anytime soon."

"Yes," Ceres murmured, seeming likewise mesmerised by the sunrise.

"Okay," Jack pushed himself to his feet, staff in hand. "I'll be back soon."

The opening of a portal announced Jack's return, three yetis in tow.

"Do your best to cover your face," Jack called to Ceres, who could vaguely be seen on the other side of the now partially thawed ice. "Okay, you guys," he turned to the yetis. "We'll probably have to break this down."

The yetis garbled something and raised the pickaxes they'd brought with them. A few well placed blows was all it took to make an opening and they wasted no time in stepping forward and heaving up the branch with all the ease in the world. Jack offered Ceres his hand, helping her out of the way so the yetis could drop the branch back down.

"You okay?" he asked her, noticing the way she was slightly hunched over and had an arm wrapped around her chest.

"A bit sore, but nothing that won't heal," she replied, pulling her hand away. "Thank you, Jack."

"You're welcome."

The yetis called out to get his attention, gesturing to the portal they had just opened.

"Coming, Phil!" he replied. "You sure you'll be okay?"

"Yes! I'm countless centuries older than you; I can take care of myself!" And the snappish attitude was back.

"Alright then," Jack headed over to the yetis who had already passed through the portal. "Guess I won't be seeing you."

"You'd better not!"

Jack grinned to himself, letting the portal close behind him.


	36. Fact and Fiction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a drabble, I think ^^;  
> Prompted from the mind-reader SonYukiGoku'sSister (FFN) who brought up Mrs Claus...  
> Disclaiming etc. etc.  
> Enjoy!

"Hey, North," Jack began slowly. "Can I ask you something?"

The man in question looked up from the ice plane he'd been carving, one brow raised in interest. "Of course, Jack. What is it?"

"I was talking with Jamie earlier about folklore and stuff about spirits," he said, moving over to perch himself on the edge of a workbench, "and he brought up one story that stumped me. So I figured I'd just ask you."

North nodded, gesturing for him to go on.

"Is there a Mrs Claus?"

North blinked, honestly not having expected such a question. "No, that one is just story."

"Oh, okay then," Jack replied with a small frown. If that was the case, then how many other things did people have wrong? He'd seen some of the representations of Jack Frost (which was rather ironic, considering that still no one had believed in him) and all were all horribly wrong.

"Is not that I never wanted to marry and have family," North continued, misreading Jack's expression. "There just… was never time. And now as immortal it would be more difficult, no?"

"There's always other spirits," Jack suggested.

North gave him a deadpan look. "Would _you_ want to marry any of them?"

…He certainly had a point. There were plenty of them who were lovely enough (Tooth, for example) but the answer would still be a decided 'no'.

"The humans have often mistaken things," North said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Like you for example; you are not old man and most certainly not cruel."

"The old man one is just them mistaking me for Old Man Winter," Jack shuddered. The guy seriously freaked him out.

"Besides, I do not need to get married – I already have family," North smiled, an expression Jack returned. "And I would not trade any of you for the world."

"Thanks, North."

North waved him off and held up the ice plane. "Come, I want to get your opinion on this."


	37. Origins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm posting here first for a change and when FFN decides to get its act together and work I'll cross-post it there, too.  
> This is a request from Okami1001who wanted to see how the other seasonals would react to Jack's story of how he came to be. A little bit angsty but I tried to keep it as light as possible.  
> Oh, and I decided to set this during 'Alone Together'

Silence. It had been so for almost ten minutes now and Jack was desperately wracking his brain for a way to end it. He didn’t really mind the dark, but darkness _and_ silence was not only boring but awkward, as well. Especially when you were sharing it with three other people.  
  
“So I take it no one can come up with any other questions, then?” he asked finally.  
  
“It would seem so,” May murmured from his right.  
  
“I’ve got one,” Lleu suddenly perked up. “How did you all become spirits?”  
  
It was an innocent enough question, but Jack found himself suddenly increasingly uncomfortable and dreading the moment when they would look to him for an answer. The nature of his ‘turning’, if you will, wasn’t something he was all that willing to talk about. It was bad enough the way the Guardians had acted like they were walking on eggshells around him when they’d found out. How would these three whom he barely knew react?  
  
“I would assume in a similar manner to the rest of you,” May said. “Mother liked my garden and approached me, asking if I’d like to become the spring seasonal.”  
  
“And you said yes just like that?” Jack asked incredulously, inner turmoil put on hold.  
  
“Well, no, I still had my family to think about. But I wasn’t yet married, though I should have been many years earlier if truth be told, and the only true obligation I had was to my parents. But when you live by yourself with only yourself to take care of, the decision wasn’t really a hard one.”  
  
“Did she have to put on a show to get you to see her?” Ceres asked knowingly.  
  
“Naturally; at my age belief in any spirits besides demons and the like was condoned, especially one such as Mother Nature.”  
  
“Most thought she was always just a term for the weather or the environment in general,” Lleu hummed, agreeing.  
  
“What about your garden?” Jack frowned, though he doubted she would have stopped caring for it despite her promotion.  
  
“I still have it,” May replied, a smile in her voice. “It’s my pride and joy.”  
  
“I was already a goddess,” Ceres began, taking the lull in the conversation as a cue to answer the question herself, “of agriculture, grain crops, fertility and motherly relationships.”  
  
Jack silently snorted at the last one. If she was a mother, he seriously pitied her kids.  
  
“It was a natural jump from that to autumn duties; especially after the fall of the Roman Empire and the large belief base I’d had.”  
  
“So basically you had nothing better to do,” Lleu summarised. Jack didn’t have to see to know she was scowling at the summer seasonal.  
  
“What about you, then?” she huffed.  
  
“Ah, you know, regular summer-loving guy with far too much time on his hands, an out of control imagination and a very small sense of responsibility. Not exactly the popular type back in the 1300s. Anyway, I happened to see Mother Nature one day and I guess she took a shine to me. And what better way to skive any and all mortal responsibilities than to become an _im_ mortal summer seasonal?”  
  
“I hope that lack of responsibility didn’t carry over to you seasonal duties,” May said, sounding a little horrified.  
  
“Nah, I get the work done. Small price to pay to enjoy summer all year long and get a bunch of supernatural abilities. How about you, Snow Cone?”  
  
And there it was. And it wasn’t like he could avoid the question either. It certainly didn’t make it any easier that Mother Nature hadn’t had a very active role in it.  
  
“I… um, I took my sister ice skating,” he said uneasily, and a hushed silence fell as if the sudden change in atmosphere was tangible. “I guess I must have forgotten to check if the ice was safe. It… it cracked underneath us. I turned it into a game,” he smiled despite himself, remembering the way she had laughed and genuinely enjoyed herself regardless of their precarious position. “I managed to get her where it was thicker, but the recoil pushed me where she’d been and I fell through. The Man in the Moon… saved me, I guess, gave me my name. I quickly realised what I could do and not long after Mother told me my position as the spirit of winter.”  
  
The silence continued for a long time afterwards and Jack shuffled restlessly.  
  
“Well it’s no wonder you became a Guardian, then,” May said quietly, sounding slightly awed. “You had it in you all along.” Jack could have hugged her, even for just having broken the suffocating silence.  
  
“I’ll say!” Lleu cut across. “That’s some serious devotion. She was lucky to have you. And now we know to check the ice before we step onto it.”  
  
“Yes, because he should take lessons in responsibility from the guy who has a self-proclaimed ‘small sense’ of it,” Ceres said dryly. And just like that the serious, heavy air evaporated.  
  
“Hey! Better that than being overly serious like May!”  
  
“I resent that,” May said tersely.  
  
“I’m sure you do.”  
  
“May’s got her merits,” Jack protested. “She may take things a little too seriously but I’ve yet to see a garden better than one she’s tended.”  
  
“I’m sitting right here, you know.”  
  
“What would you know about gardens?” Ceres asked.  
  
“Touché, but the point still stands,” Jack rebuked.  
  
“I’m not even sure if I’m being insulted or complimented anymore,” May sighed.  
  
And so it went on until they got bored again lulled once more into silence.


	38. The Problem with Sugar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another quick update! And there'll be one tomorrow, too :3  
> This one is a request from RunFromTheDarkness (FFN) who wanted to see/read Jack on a sugar rush and helium (which I decided worked well together)  
> Enjoy! And I disclaim.

It was Tooth's worst nightmare come to life and they were all dreading the moment she would arrive. It wouldn't end well for any of them. Well, Jack wasn't dreading it. But, then, Jack wasn't exactly in his 'right mind'. North was going to have to put a very strong, very ice-proof lock on his kitchen. Because the elves had somehow managed to convince Jack to help them bust into said kitchen and get all the cookies in the damn place.

And now they were all on a sugar high and there was nothing any of the others could do about it but watch.

"If he gets a cavity Tooth's gonna kill us," Bunny muttered under his breath as he watched the winter spirit dart around the room, freezing everything he touched. Including the elves chasing after him. "That is, if we don't get turned into ice sculptures first."

Sandy nodded in agreement, his face screwed up in worry. He'd tried using his dream sand to put Jack to sleep but the winter spirit had successfully managed to dodge almost every 'attack' and the one time he had been hit his body had so much energy he'd woken up within minutes. They were just going to have to wait until he wore himself out. Something they were all worried was going to take a while.

Jack suddenly halted in mid-air, turning to look at the three Guardians below with a suspiciously wicked grin. "Hey!" he called, drawing his attention to the elves still running about. At his call they all stood to attention, hands up in salute.

"He's plotting something," Bunny said, eyes narrowed.

"To the workshop!" Jack suddenly called, zooming out of the room with an army of elves hurrying after him.

"Oh no," North muttered, chasing after them. Bunny and Sandy exchanged worried glances before joining him.

The sugar-drunk elves (including Jack, who was technically an ice-elf (and they wondered if this was perhaps why they were so willing to follow him)) had barely been in the workshop unsupervised for a minute and already it was a disaster.

Paint was splattered everywhere, mostly on the yetis who were trying to grab the elves darting underfoot and the winter spirit zipping about above them, sprinkling a fine layer of snow wherever he went. They were failing, but North had to give them credit for trying.

And then the elves got hold of the remote control planes and cars. Now airborne and twice as fast the yetis had no hope of catching them as they quickly made their way over to where Jack had perched himself by a gas cylinder. The Guardians had a collective sinking feeling at the devious smirk on their youngest's face.

"Elves to attention!" Jack called as Bunny started racing toward him, ready to simply tie him down if he had to. The elves quickly turned to their leader waiting for orders. "Capture the Kangaroo!"

Bunny skidded to a halt, ears flat against his head. The elves turned to him with grins matching Jack's and charged, the ones in the planes coming from above with Christmas lights at the ready.

"Crickey!" the Pooka cried, turning to run back the way he'd come. It was futile, of course, and in the end his attempted escape got North and Sandy caught too. The three watched warily as Jack dragged the gas cylinder over to them.

The elves formed a semi-circle around them as Jack stopped at the front.

"Hey, Bunny," Jack began, homing in on his target. Bunny didn't like the glint in his eyes. "You were so cute when you went all little. Did you know you were cute? But the voice kinda ruined it. Your voice is too deep to be cute. So we're gonna fix that."

Bunny's eyes widened, his gaze flickering to the gas cylinder's label. Helium. Oh no.

Jack pulled a balloon out of his pocket (where he'd gotten it none of them knew) and placed it over the valve of the cylinder, filling it with the lighter than air gas.

"Don't you dare," Bunny growled.

"Consider it a thank you for that time you made me wear shoes," Jack smirked, holding the end of the balloon towards the Pooka's mouth. Bunny turned his head away, leaning back as far as he could. "Elves!"

The elves stepped forwards, saluting like before. "Hold him still."

Bunny put up an admirable struggle but not even he could fight against an army of elves while being tied to the Sandman and Santa. And, with the end of the balloon pushed against his mouth and an elf holding his nose, it was only a matter of time before he had to breathe in.

Jack laughed victoriously when Bunny was finally forced to take a breath, pulling back and releasing the balloon.

"I'll get you for this, Frostbite!" Bunny seethed, but the effect was kind of ruined with such an adorable voice.

"Much better," Jack laughed again, flying off just as Phil made a grab for him.

 

* * *

 

Tooth wasn't sure what to make of the situation when she arrived. The Globe Room had been a mess of ice, snow, crumbs she suspected came from high sugar cookies, and knocked over furniture. Perhaps this meeting wasn't going to be just a regular catch-up.

Jack was collapsed on the floor in a heap, elves around him in a similar manner. A little concerned, she flittered over to him and gently shook his shoulder.

"Sweet Tooth?"

Jack made some non-committal groan that sounded a little like 'yes' but could have just as easily meant nothing at all. She tried again but without results so opted to following the carnage to the workshop where she stopped in her tracks, gasping. There was paint everywhere; on the walls, footsteps on the floor, on the yetis who appeared to have been turned into snowmen, only their heads free, and on the three Guardians who had been tied up with Christmas lights.

She couldn't help the laugh that bubbled in her throat at the sight of them. North had a pair of rabbit ears on his head, with whiskers and the tip of his nose coloured in what appeared to be texta. Wearing the same put-out expression was Bunny, who had been forced into (and he could only have been forced; there was no way he'd do so willingly) a full Santa costume, complete with a long white beard. Sandy seemed to have been the only one who managed to get away mildly unscathed, but even he had been decorated with shells like some kind of living sand castle.

"What happened here?" she asked, gaping.

"Jack Frost happened," Bunny snapped in a high squeaky voice.

Tooth blinked once before bursting out into laughter.

"Hey! It's not funny! Now hurry up and untie us!"

"I-I'm sorry, Bunny," she managed through her giggles. "I shouldn't… I shouldn't laugh!"

The second they were free North and Bunny tore off their costumes, Sandy taking his time to pick off the shells.

"Do you want to explain to me what happened?" Tooth tried again when she'd finally gotten herself under control.

The three exchanged nervous glances and Sandy slowly shook his head.

"Okay… tell me anyway," she ordered, suddenly very suspicious.

"Jack… may have helpedelvesbreakintothekitchenandeatenallthecookies," North said in a rush, hoping she wouldn't understand. If the thunderous look on her face was anything to go by he had failed.

"You let him eat cookies?!" she bellowed. "Do you _know_ how much sugar is in those things?! What if he gets a cavity?! His teeth are perfect! They're not allowed to be ruined!"

"Calm down, Toothy, we will just-"

"Don't you 'Toothy' me!" Tooth said, hands on her hips. "If there is even a speck of plaque on those teeth there'll be hell to pay!"

And they certainly didn't doubt it.

"Then we just have to find Jack and get him to brush teeth."

Tooth softened a little, but there was still a hard edge to her words when she said, "He's crashed in the Globe Room."

They followed her into said room, quickly locating the spirit in question amidst the elves and snow. Bunny's frown slowly morphed into a smirk as Tooth ordered one of her fairies to fetch a toothbrush and toothpaste.

 

* * *

 

When he awoke to a headache several hours later, Jack knew something was amiss, and it wasn't just that his breathe was minty fresh. It was only when he went to stand that he realised what it was.

"BUNNY, YOU DEMON!" he roared.

There, strapped to his feet, were a bright pink pair of high heels.


	39. Meet the Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick update!
> 
> To the lovely Seryyth (FFN), may your birthday be one of memories, wonder, hope and dreams, and of course a little bit of fun :3

Jack was late. Again. It was an often enough occurrence, especially when the meeting had been pre-planned so they wouldn't have to put out the lights. Jack had a habit of being forgetful when the only way to tell one day from another was the passing of the sun. And it was even more frequent when said meeting was held in the middle of his off-season, a time when they weren't all that sure where he went. But that didn't mean it didn't annoy them (well, Bunny, anyway).

When waiting another hour for him to show up proved futile, the Guardians decided they'd better go find him.

"Let's think about this logically," Tooth said as they stared at the large Globe of Belief. "Where would be cold enough for him to go at this time of year?"

"I do not understand why he does not stay here," North said with a small frown. "Where better place for a winter spirit than somewhere it is always cold?"

"I think you've got a point there, mate," Bunny looked up at the Cossack. "But if he's not here what other place is it always cold?" he asked in a suggestive tone.

"The South Pole!" the others cried in unison.

Sandy created an image of a lumpy, but empty plane, a quizzical expression on his face.

"Sandy's right," Tooth told them. "There's nothing down there but snow and ice. Surely Jack would get bored being there for months on end."

"Well, there is only one way to find out!" North bellowed. "To the sleigh!"

Bunny groaned but conceded to following the others to the death trap. Rabbit holes would be less effective for a wide scale search, after all.

 

* * *

 

Jack looked up at the overcast sky as something large, red and familiar shot through the air towards him.

"North's sleigh?" he said in confusion, exchanging a look with the penguin closest to him. The bird chirped something in reply before both their gazes returned to the sky to watch the sleigh make a rather bumpy landing on the compact ice.

The colony of penguins to one look at the large, muscular and heavily breathing reindeer and quickly formed a tight circle around their winter spirit, watching the newcomers with suspicious glints in their eyes. Jack struggled to see over the tops of their heads from where he was sitting but could just make out the forms of all of the Guardians exiting the sleigh, Bunny considerably quicker than the rest.

"Must be a big deal if they're all here," he muttered.

The Guardians were looking at the colony cautiously, scanning for Jack, no doubt; they'd probably seen him from overhead. Figuring he might as well spare them the trouble, Jack raised his staff above the birds' heads and waved it around a bit.

"Hey guys," he called out. "What brings you here?"

"You never showed up for the meeting," Bunny called back, looking like he was torn between being angry and very, very confused.

" _Oh_. That was today? Sorry, it's hard to keep track of time when a day lasts six months down here." He tried to get to his feet but several beaks gripped the hem of his hoodie and pulled him back down. "Well, if you're not going to let me up, the least you could do is get out of the way a bit so I can see them," he told them flatly. The penguins shuffled around but only a little bit. It was enough for the Guardians to properly see him, at least.

"Um, Jack?" Tooth hedged.

"Yeah?"

"Why are you surrounded by penguins?"

In response to this question one penguin, considerably chubbier than the rest, broke free of the group and made its slow waddling way over to her. Raising its head, its eyes locked with hers and let out a loud string of chirps and calls. Jack promptly burst into laughter.

Tooth looked between the penguin and Jack and asked hesitantly, "What did he say?"

"I have no idea," Jack grinned, wiping a tear from his eye. "Your face though!"

The chubby penguin fluffed its feathers in irritation.

"Would you care to explain what's going on, mate?" Bunny asked, looking increasingly frustrated.

"Oh, right, sorry," Jack said sheepishly, and this time when he got to his feet the penguins didn't stop him, instead pressing closer to his legs so he couldn't really move. "Guys, these are the Guardians," he told the birds. "Guardians, these are the penguins."

The penguins called out collectively in salutation. Or, at least, that's what Jack suspected it was.

"That… didn't really explain anything," North said after a moment.

"Well, one time when I was down here in the off season – this was before the Pitch thing – I suddenly found myself surrounded by them and I've come back to visit them ever since. I'm pretty sure they think I'm one of them."

One of the larger birds looked up at let out a string of strange noises. Jack looked down at it and copied the calls.

Apparently no longer considering the Guardians a threat, the colony began to disperse a bit, some of the more bold and curious of the flock going over to investigate the strange newcomers. Tooth took one look at their beaks and seemed to give a whole-body shudder.

"They… they have no teeth… no teeth…" she muttered quietly, eyes wide and haunted as she slowly made her way back to the sleigh to curl up in the back. The others watched her go with raised brows. Some of the younger penguins followed her, clambering up into the sleigh after her (but giving the reindeer a wide berth).

"Come on, it's freezing out here and we've got a meeting to get to," Bunny grumbled.

Sandy frowned, having been enjoying stroking one of the few of the birds that was shorter than him, but joined the Pooka back to the sleigh nonetheless. He would have to come back another time.

"Yeah, alright," Jack sighed, gently scooping the penguins trying to smother Tooth out and back onto the ice. "I have to go now but I'll be back later!" he called to them.

They called out sadly but seemed to accept it – he was a free spirit, they knew, and he often went off to do who knows what, but he always, always came back again. And so, to a chorus of bird calls, the sleigh took off from Antarctica to begin the journey back to the other end of the world.


	40. Hearing Voices

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last request chapter for 2014 (the last chapter for 2014 will be a Christmas one :3) I won't be able to get much writing done until after New Years since my sister will be visiting.
> 
> Prompted by Singing in the Jukebox who had the genius idea of Jack accidentally pocket calling someone and being confused by the voices
> 
> I disclaim

"Jamie, Sophie, time for dinner!"

Jamie looked back at the house, snowball poised at the ready. "Coming, mom!" he called back.

Taking advantage of the fifteen year old's distraction, Jack pelted him in the side of the face with a snowball of his own. Sophie laughed, copying the action and it quickly became two on one. Being struck from both sides, Jamie never got the chance to retaliate and in no time the two of them had pinned him to the ground.

"Mercy! Mercy!" Jamie cried between fits of laughter as Sophie tickled him.

"Say Jack Frost is the king of winter," Jack smirked.

"Jack- Jack Frost is the- the king of winter!"

"And Sophie is the greatest!" Sophie added.

"F-Fine!" Jamie gasped. "Sophie is the greatest!"

Satisfied, Jack and Sophie got off him, helping him up.

"You two better get inside before your mom comes and drags you," Jack grinned at them.

"Okay, see you later, Jack!" Jamie waved, heading towards the house.

"Bye Jack!" Sophie called, hurrying after her brother.

Jack watched them go with a smile on his face. He'd never get tired of those two. And he was happy to say that even as they continued to grow up neither of them showed signs of stopping believing. He hoped they never did.

Something black stood out against the snow and Jack reached down to fish it out. It was a rectangular shape with a screen that took up an entire side of it and he had absolutely no idea what it was. It was some kind of technology, he was sure, and likely belonged to Jamie.

"I'll give it back to him after dinner," he decided, tucking the device into his pocket and flying off towards his lake to kill an hour or two.

 

* * *

 

" _Hello?_ "

Jack startled so badly at the sudden voice he almost fell off the branch he was sitting on, destroying the delicate snowflake he's been working on. Glancing down beneath him he scanned the darkening forest for whoever it was that had spoken but the area was deserted, as it usually was. Maybe he was hearing things. With a mental shrug he reclined back against the tree trunk, going back to designing snowflakes.

" _Helloooo?"_

Another snowflake shattered. Now he knew he wasn't hearing things. There was definitely a voice. A disembodied voice.

"Jack-O, if that's you I will freeze your pumpkin patch so bad you'll be thawing it out for years," he called out to the darkness. But even as he said it he knew it couldn't have been Jack-O; Halloween was over for another year and its spirit was back in hibernation.

" _Hello? I know you're there, I can hear you."_

"This is starting to get a little freaky," Jack murmured, looking around again for someone who wasn't there. "It's finally happened; 300 years of isolation are finally catching up to me. I'm going insane."

" _Heeeey?! Jamie?"_

Funny how the voice sounded suspiciously like Cupcake. Just a lot quieter. As if she was far away. Maybe that was why he couldn't see her. And why was she calling out to Jamie? Jamie was at home… right? What if he'd realised his techno-thingy was missing and went out looking for it? The woods weren't the safest place at night; you never know who you might find prowling around.

Mind made up, Jack allowed the wind to sweep him up and above the forest, keeping his eyes on the ground below in search of Cupcake or Jamie.

" _What's that noise? Is that wind? What are you doing?"_

Why wasn't the volume increasing or decreasing at all? Surely he had to be getting either closer or farther away. Jack halted in mid air.

"Cupcake? Can you hear me?"

_"Yes. It's about time you answered. Although from the sounds of it you're Jack not Jamie."_

"Where are you?" he frowned in confusion, still trying to spot her amongst the foliage.

" _At home. Why? Is something wrong?_ "

Jack blinked. "…If you're at home how come I can hear you from all the way out here? I mean, not even Bunny has hearing _that_ good."

Cupcake was silent for a long time. Just when he thought she must have gone or his mind had decided to become sane again she asked, " _Jack, why do you have Jamie's phone?_ "

Phone? He didn't. Phones were connected to walls or there were the portable ones that had small screens and lots of buttons. "I don't," he replied, getting more and more confused with each passing second.

" _…Do you have anything of Jamie's?_ "

"Um, just some weird box thingy he dropped earlier. I'm gonna give it back to him once he's finished dinner."

" _Does this 'box thingy' have a screen?"_

"Yeah."

" _And very few buttons?_ "

"…Yeah. Since when are you psychic?"

" _I'm not_ ," she said, sounding like she was either constipated or restraining laughter. Probably the latter, although why he didn't know. " _That 'thingy' is Jamie's phone._ "

"No offense, but I've seen phones. This is not a phone," Jack let himself drift down to land on a tree branch closer to the main part of Burgess.

" _How acquainted are you with modern technology?_ "

"Um… whatever you guys show me or things on street ads, I guess. It's not like I have the money or the means to go and buy anything."

" _Okay, well you need to trust me when I tell you that phones have evolved. That device is Jamie's phone and I you must have accidentally called me._ "

Well, that _did_ make sense. Except for the fact that he hadn't touched the thing since he'd put it in his pocket.

" _Pocket calling,_ " Cupcake explained when he shared this titbit with her. " _It happens to all of us. Remind me to tell Jamie you're in need of modernising. I have to go. Bye, Jack."_ A few beeps followed and then all was silent once more.

"I'm perfectly modernised," Jack said to no one with a small pout, taking off towards Jamie's house. The kid could keep his freaky talking-device. Handy as it was, he wasn't sure he wanted to hear disembodied voices on a daily basis.


	41. The Wonder of Christmas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet another wild Christmas special appears!  
> Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah/Happy Snoggletog/whatever it is you celebrate at this time of year. And Happy New Year to you all. May it bring you much happiness and little weight gain (unless you're too skinny for your own good, in which case may you gain weight enough)  
> See you next year!

When you went from having nothing to suddenly having four separate families – five if you counted the dearly departed – a day like Christmas shifted rather drastically from a lonely and rather boring affair to being, well, the opposite of that. Such was the position Jack now found himself in and what had once been far too much time had become nowhere near enough.

The Guardians had their traditional Christmas party on Boxing Day (to give North the chance to get some sleep), and Mother Nature's celebration was usually Christmas lunch. That left him with a morning and an evening to work with, unless he decided to use some of Christmas Eve, as well. Which he did. And, so, the first stop was at the Bennett's place on Christmas Eve to hang out with Jamie and Sophie while they attempted to stay awake long enough to catch North in the act of breaking and entering (without the breaking. Hopefully).

Jamie was ready and waiting by the time Jack showed up at his bedroom window and he didn't even have to knock before the way was clear and he was being ushered into the room.

"You came!" Jamie beamed at him.

"Of course I came! I told you I would," Jack replied, mock insulted.

"It's just you're not very punctual and you can be kinda forgetful."

"Well excuse me if the only way I have to tell the time is the sun. And that becomes a bit unreliable when you change time zones."

By that point Sophie had heard them and slipped into the room, hurrying over to give Jack a hug.

"Hey, Soph," Jack grinned at her. "You ready to catch North?"

"Hide! Hide! Hide! Hide!" she chanted, jumping up and down.

"I know," Jamie told him, referring to their interrupted conversation, turning to grab something from under his bed. "That's why Sophie and I got you this."

Jack stared at the small box wrapped in festive paper. "You… You got me a gift?"

"Yeah? That's generally what you do for people you care about."

Jack tentatively took the proffered present, seating himself on the edge of Jamie's bed, Sophie climbing up beside him.

"Open!" she ordered when all he did was stare at it.

Jack glanced at her and then began carefully undoing the wrapping, being careful not to tear the paper. A huge grin broke out on his face when he saw what was inside. It was a watch, clearly designed for children, with a snowman on the face and snowflakes decorating the fabric band.

"Now you won't be late," Jamie told him, watching the winter spirit expectantly. "Do you like it?"

"Like it?" Jack asked, looking up at him. If his smile was any wider his face would tear. "I love it!" At Sophie's prodding he took it out and secured it around his left wrist. "Thank you. Both of you."

"Welcome!" Sophie beamed.

"As for you two," Jack said, "I wasn't sure what to get you, so I decided instead to let you pick anywhere in the world you want to go and I'll take you there."

"Really?" Jamie gaped.

"Really. Just tell me where and when."

"Awesome!"

 

* * *

 

"Hey, wake up," Jack elbowed Jamie, who had fallen asleep against him. There were several loud thuds on the roof – the tell-tale sign that North had finally arrived.

"Huh? Wha?" Jamie slurred sleepily. Another thud followed the first and instantly the kid was more alert, looking up at the ceiling as if he could see through it. "Sophie, wake up!" he whisper yelled, gently shaking his sister's shoulder. The blonde mumbled something unintelligible. "Soph, Santa's here!"

"Santa!" she parroted, blearily blinking her eyes open.

And the next thing they knew North was pulling himself out of the fire place, a large red sack hauled over his shoulder.

"Hey, North," Jack greeted.

"Ah, Jack, should have known you'd be here," North smiled at him. "You are still coming to party, yes?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Good."

"Santa!" Sophie cheered, now fully awake. Jamie stood beside her, beaming at the intruder.

"Hello Jamie and Sophie," North smiled at them. "Have you both been good this year?"

"You're the one with the list," Jack pointed out. He was ignored.

"Yes!" she answered at the same time Jamie said, "I think so."

"Then let me see if I've got something for you," North whispered conspiratorially, reaching into the sack. "Aha!" he exclaimed, pulling out two expertly wrapped presents. "What do we have here?" He pretended to carefully inspect the presents before passing one to Jamie and the other to Sophie. "I believe these are for you."

"Thank you!" the kids chorused, ecstatic.

"You're welcome. Now, if you will excuse me, I have many more stops to make," North said, pausing on his way back to the fireplace only long enough to practically inhale the milk and cookies set out for him. "Merry Christmas!" he bellowed. And then he was gone.

"That man has a black hole for a stomach," Jack muttered.

 

* * *

 

Stop number two turned out to be Antarctica the following morning. With his new watch (which he had set to the time zone Mother Nature lived in – having to change it all the time would be a pain, but far more trustworthy than the sun) he would be able to keep track of how long he had until he was expected for Christmas lunch.

Jamie and Sophie hadn't wanted him to go but it was easy enough to distract them with presents and promises to come back after Christmas. They had family coming, anyway. Plus, he suspected Bunny would show up sooner or later to see Sophie and the Pooka would probably appreciate it if he wasn't there to tease him. What? He couldn't cut the rabbit a break every now and then?

It didn't take him long to find his adopted family, who were a tad confused at his early return but excited nonetheless. Jack wouldn't have been surprised if they had no idea that Christmas even existed.

"Yes, yes, hello!" he laughed as they swarmed him. "I was gonna get you some fish or something but I don't have any money or purchasing power – not to mention there are what? At least fifty of you? Maybe even a hundred?" That would be a lot of fish.

The penguins, apparently, either didn't care or hadn't understood a word. Jack shook his head in amusement and consented to being climbed on by the younger ones.

"Well, you've got the family part down," he said, gently grabbing one of the babies that was about to fall from his shoulder. "And the excitement. Even if you're not excited for the same reasons as other kids in the world." He paused for a minute, his face brightening as a fantastic idea came to him. "You know what, I think I can do something better than fish!"

It took a moment to extract himself from the pile of feathered bodies, who continued to follow him as he hurried over to a reasonably penguin-less spot. It took a while, but within the hour he had created an ice playground fit for a penguin, complete with insane slides and easy to scale stairs (they only had little legs, after all).

"What do you think?" he asked expectantly, watching them all gawk at the sudden creation. With a combined squawk of… something, they all practically charged the structure. "I'll take that as a positive reaction," Jack laughed.

He spent most of the morning chasing them around their new playground until a look at his watch told him he had to keep moving.

 

* * *

 

"'Bout time you showed up," Ceres said by way of welcome as Jack entered the dining room designated for Christmas lunch.

"Sorry, I had to fly here from Antarctica," Jack apologised, taking a seat next to May.

"Don't listen to her," Lleu told him. "She's just grumpy 'cause she's hungry. You're actually on time for once."

"Merry Christmas, Jack," May smiled, the only one to actually make anything close to a greeting.

"Merry Christmas, May," Jack returned.

"Good, now that we're all here," Mother Nature smiled at them all, "we can start. Shall we make a toast?"

"To another successful year of the world not being destroyed," Rain announced, raising her glass.

"And may we go easy on the Global Warming next year," Storm added, copying the action.

Jack stared at them.

"…How about we drink to the fact that we're all here, in good spirits," (they all promptly ignored the sour look on Ceres' face) "and healthy?" May suggested.

"Wonderful," Mother approved. "To us!"

"To us!" they chorused.

 

* * *

 

"Time for presents!" Lleu suddenly shouted about half an hour after they'd finished lunch (which was more like a feast – Jack was pretty sure he wasn't going to have to eat anything for at least a month now) and promptly pulled a stack of wrapped gifts from hammer space, dumping them on the table. "Let's see… May, think fast!" he called, practically hurling a small box at the spring spirit who only just managed to catch it before it could hit her in the face. "And one for Ceres… and Jack… and Rain… Storm… Mother… bunch of sprites who are very quiet and we tend to forget about…" and so it went until everyone around the table had nearly been knocked out by a flying present.

"Oh, it's beautiful," May breathed, holding up an intricate silver wind chime. "How did you ever get it?"

"Well, I got a werewolf to help me get the silver–"

"I take it back. I don't want to know," she hastily interrupted. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Ceres was trying to be subtle as she admired the hairpiece she'd received, but the gentle look on her face when she thanked him gave her away pretty easily. Mother Nature had no such qualms as she gushed over her own gift, as did the others.

Jack stared at the pile of candy in front of him. He'd come to love chocolate since Jamie had introduced it to him and was now struggling to keep the smile from taking over his face.

"I wasn't sure what to get you," Lleu said, catching his attention. "I know you don't really have one set place to live in like the rest of us do, so I figured whatever I got for you would have to be something unobtrusive that you could carry around – or eat. Just don't tell Tooth."

"Definitely not," Jack hastily agreed. She would have a fit if she knew. "Thanks, Lleu."

"No problem, man."

The others seemed to keep in mind his nomadic state as well, all the gifts he received being small and unobtrusive. May, however, had gone a step further, giving him her pick of the best flowers in her garden, a knowing look on her face. Jack knew exactly what he was going to do with them.

Jack found choosing presents a lot harder than the others. He didn't have as many contacts as them (like werewolves…) and it wasn't like he could buy anything, so that only left him with his ice powers. He'd ended up making intricate, personal snowflakes about the size of the palm of his hand that wouldn't melt. He'd been wary about Ceres' but the woman seemed to like it.

When the celebration finally ended it was evening. Jack wouldn't have to be at the Pole until the following day (and he was sure to reset his clock to the workshop's time zone), so that gave him all night and part of the morning to spend with his truest family.

The flowers May had given him stood out beautifully against the snow and he was sure if they could have seen them, his sister and parents would have loved them. Seating himself in front of their graves he frosted the petals so the plants wouldn't shrivel and die too quickly.

"Merry Christmas, guys. I hope you're having a great time wherever you are."

 

* * *

 

"Jack, you're here!" Tooth fluttered over, barely giving him the chance to land in the Globe Room before she and her fairies were in his face.

"Hi Tooth," he smiled, stepping backwards a little.

"Can't believe you're on time for once," Bunny muttered from where he was warming himself up by the fireplace.

"That would be because of this," he replied, showing off the watch clamped to his arm.

"Where'd you get a watch?"

"Jamie and Sophie."

"It suits you," Tooth said, grabbing his wrist to get a closer look.

"I'm still trying to get over the fact that none of you seem to think I have a good sense of time."

"That's cause you don't," Bunny rolled his eyes.

At that moment, Sandy flew in on the back of a sand manta that dissipated as soon as his feet touched the floor. He waved in response to their greeting, moving over to them.

"Ah, good, we are all here," North called, entering the room. "Come, lunch is ready!"

Jack resisted the urge to groan. He doubted he could eat anything more than a few bites after the feast Mother had prepared. And there was no doubt North would go over the top. But that was probably because he had all the yetis and the elves celebrating as well (although the yetis liked to have their own party… wherever it was they went when they weren't working).

As he had expected, there was so much food on the long table you could barely see any of the wood. Taking a seat beside Sandy, he served himself a small amount – nothing hot, of course – while the others heaped up their plates (well, North at least) like they'd been starving themselves for the occasion.

"Jack, you have hardly eaten," North noted with a small frown as he was serving himself second helpings nearly half an hour later.

"Hm?" Jack looked up from where he'd been picking at a salad. "Oh, I had a big lunch at Mother's place yesterday."

"But that was yesterday."

"…Yeah?"

"What he means is you should be hungry again by now," Tooth said between mouthfuls.

Jack raised a brow. "Not really; I probably won't need to eat again for at least a few weeks."

They all stopped eating, openly staring at him.

"What?"

"…Before yesterday when was the last time you ate something?" Bunny asked, sounding very much like he didn't want to know.

"I dunno… I think it was probably when Jamie found out I'd never had ice cream before and bought me some. It's great, by the way."

Sandy created a picture of a calendar flipping backwards with a question mark next to it.

"When? Umm…. A week or two ago? I don't really remember when specifically."

"Balakirev," North muttered, sounding somewhat horrified.

"What's the big deal?" Jack queried, confused by their reactions.

"What's the big deal?!" Bunny echoed. "Mate, you need to eat more than that! It's no bloody wonder you're so skinny!"

"Hey! I'm svelte," Jack retorted. "Besides that, even if I _did_ have the appetite to eat more – which I _don't_ – where exactly do you expect me to get these meals from? It's not like much grows in the middle of winter, and I can't just waltz into a store and buy something."

They didn't like this excuse if the looks on their faces was anything to go by.

"Jack, I want you to come here for meals," North said.

"Thanks for the offer but I don't need to. I'm fine."

"Wasn't offer."

"Can we not talk about this right now?" Jack grumbled. He wasn't some petulant child they could order about, anyway. "It's supposed to be Christmas, right? So let's be festive," to make his point he shoved a large forkful of potato salad into his mouth.

 

* * *

 

The Guardians didn't bring up the topic of his eating habits again, but he didn't delude himself into thinking they'd dropped it. The shoe incident had been more than enough proof of that.

But, when he'd brought out his presents for each of them, he was in a far better mood. Like what he'd done with the other nature spirits, they were personalised snowflakes, except a bit bigger. He even had one for Baby Tooth (considerably smaller than the others' so it was in proportion to her size), who was absolutely ecstatic that he'd thought to get something for her, too. Bunny, much to Tooth's chagrin, had given him some Easter chocolate, which he'd claimed would be better than anything Jamie could possibly offer him. Sandy had happily passed him a small velvet pouch filled with dream sand. He'd expected Tooth to give him a toothbrush or some such thing, but instead she'd brought out a golden cylindrical tube with a very familiar face on the end.

"Are… are you sure I can have this?" he asked, scared she'd say no.

"They're your teeth, Jack; your memories. I want you to have them. Besides, I don't think we'll be needing them at the Tooth Palace," Tooth insisted.

"Thank you. Really."

"Bah! You have not seen my present yet!" North, never one to be outdone on his own holiday, interrupted, holding out a small red-wrapped box.

"Aren't I on the Naughty List?"

"That is for all children; this is for family. Is different."

Bemused, Jack took it from him and opened it, revealing a miniature Globe of Belief on a silver chain, complete with little golden lights.

"Is made of ice," North continued, "so will melt after little while, but I'm sure you can do something about that."

Jack grinned, holding the Globe up to his face and breathing on it. "That should do it," he said, pulling his chain over his head. "Thanks, North."

"You are Guardian – all Guardians must have Globe of Belief! I made small so you could take with you; now you won't have to come all the way here or to other Globe when you need to check, yes? Not that you are not welcome, of course."

Wait… all Guardians have a Globe of Belief… but hadn't he seen one in Pitch's lair? Jack pushed the matter aside. For the meantime. He would have to think on it more later.

Baby Tooth brought him back to himself, holding something shiny in front of his face. Jack beamed at her when he realised what it was. A coin.

"It's perfect," he laughed, accepting the gift. "Thanks, Baby Tooth."

She seemed rather pleased with herself, taking up her regular spot on his shoulder.

It had been a hectic couple of days, but by far and without competition the best Christmas he'd had for a long, long time.


	42. To Entice a Laugh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm baaaack~ Did you miss me?   
> So we're kicking off 2015 with a request from SanctuaryInMusic who wanted to see/read one where Jack feels an unknown protectiveness over his sister.  
> Enjoy!

She was back again. It wasn't the first time Jack had seen the girl come to the lakeside and he highly doubted it would be the last. He knew she lived within the village – had seen her there on several occasions – and sometimes adults accompanied her (whom he presumed were her parents). But this time she was alone.

Like the last time (and all the times before that) she sat herself down on the lake edge and stared out solemnly at the frozen water. It seemed to be her default expression; he could recall only a few rare occasions he'd seen her smile, and even those had been small and weak. It was like someone had come along with a fun-destroying broom and swept it right out of her. And as someone who prided himself on having fun, it was almost insulting.

"Hey, Jack," the girl – Emma, he remembered – muttered quietly.

He knew it wasn't directed at him; he'd learned that the hard way the first time he'd seen her there. At first he'd been ecstatic – someone could finally see him! – but it was clear that her Jack was someone else when he'd talked to her and moved into her line of sight without garnering any sort of reaction.

"Hey, Emma," he replied anyway, dropping down from his branch. At least he could pretend they were having a two-way conversation, right? That way it would look like neither of them were insane and talking to themselves. Not that anyone could see him anyway.

"I really miss you," she said, her voice hitching as her eyes started to water. "It's just not the same without you."

Her words were almost identical to the last time she'd visited, and like the last time Jack found himself at a loss for how to respond. It was just as well she wasn't expecting one. But nonetheless a part of him pained to hear her grief, wanted to scoop her up into a hug, hold her close and tell her everything was going to be okay. But he couldn't. And it hurt.

"I ran into the Williamson boys again today," she continued quietly.

"Again? Don't those two know when to quit?" Jack frowned, taking a step across the ice towards her. "I should have known it was something like that; you have a habit of coming here to talk when you're troubled. What did they do this time?"

"It was the same old thing. They found out that I still come here to talk to you and they told me to stop being stupid. You're not here anymore and you can't solve my problems for me. They said that I should grow up and move on.

"But I can't! If it wasn't for me you would still be here! I can't just forget and pretend it never happened!" she curled in on herself, burying her head in her knees and hugging herself. Her next words were almost completely obscured by her tears. "Why did you have to die?"

"Hey," Jack frowned, closing the distance between them and kneeling down in front of her. "I don't know who the Jack you're trying to talk to is, but I have no doubt you were as important to him as he was to you. And even if what you say is true – that he's gone because of you – which I highly doubt, I'm sure he wouldn't see it that way. I'll bet he was just glad that you're okay. So don't cry, okay? What do you think he'd rather see; you crying or you with your beautiful smile? Don't listen to those Williamson boys; they're about as smart as a bag of rocks."

Ever in tune with him, the wind rustled her hair and clothes gently in a silent show of support. Emma slowly lifted her head and for a second their eyes connected and Jack allowed him that one moment to believe she could see him before the truth sank in and he realised she wasn't focused on him but the lake behind him.

 

* * *

 

Emma stayed at the lake for a long time afterwards, but when she did finally decide to head back to the village she didn't go alone; Jack trailed along behind her. Neither of them said anything; Jack knew he wouldn't be heard and Emma didn't know she wasn't alone (which upon reflection made him feel a bit like a stalker).

He'd thought he would just be silently escorting her home but they'd barely stepped back into the boundary of the village before three very familiar boys spotted her and, snickering to each other, began moving over. Jack glared at them but of course was ignored.

"What do you want?" Emma snapped with surprising hostility for someone who'd spent the last hour crying beside a lake.

"We were just wondering where you ran off to," the oldest of the three drawled, looking rather bored despite the wicked glee in his eyes. "Back to the lake to cry to your brother?"

"It's none of your business."

"Hey! You can't talk to him like that!" the second yelled. Emma glanced at him but only momentarily.

"I think she just doesn't want to admit that she went to tell her brother how she's such a big coward who can't fight her own battles," the oldest smirked.

"Leave her alone," Jack ground out, staff clenched in a death grip. He knew deep down he would never deliberately hurt a child but he would be lying if he said he wasn't sorely tempted right at that moment.

Emma's eyebrows drew together and she diverted her attention to her feet, but she made no move to deny the claims or defend herself.

"I'm right aren't I?"

"She just doesn't want to admit it," the youngest, around Emma's age, chimed in. "Just like she doesn't want to admit that it's her fault he's dead in the first place."

Emma's hands folded into fists, tears swimming in her eyes anew. She looked like she was either about to break down completely or hit them. If it was the latter Jack would happily cheer her on, but the chances of it being the former were too much for him to bear. Not to mention how fiercely he found himself wanting to defend her. He'd always want to protect the kids who got picked on, but with her it was so much stronger, so much more personal, even though it didn't even make sense to him.

So it didn't really come as much of a surprise when he found himself leaning down to scoop up a handful of snow, packing it into a snowball. One of the boys opened his big mouth to say something else and Jack took that as the perfect opportunity to strike.

The impact of snow in the guy's face was strong enough to make him stagger backwards and Jack quickly struck the ground around the boy's feet with his staff, easily turning it to ice and making him fall hard.

For a moment nobody moved, all staring wide-eyed as they slowly processed what had happened. And then Jack got the other two.

"Hmm, what do you think, Emma?" Jack grinned as he leered over the three kids who couldn't see him. "Think they need a bit of redecorating?"

Emma didn't reply.

"I'll take that as a yes," he said. The wind whipped around him playfully as it sensed his intentions, picking up loose flakes of snow and shaking the leaves on the trees. "Good idea, wind," he laughed, noticing the snow-loaded branches of the tree they were almost directly under.

It required patience – one thing he was not good at – but he managed to restrain himself until just the moment when they were almost to their feet again before striking the side of the tree with his staff. The branch happily released its burden, dropping a heavy pile of snow onto the boys and forcing them back to the ground on their backsides with a muffled 'oomph'.

A pearl of laughter rippled the air and Jack froze, his gaze instantly homing in on the source. Emma was surveying the scene with wide eyes and a grin to match.

"Did you just…?" Jack gaped.

Three heads popped out of the snow like daisies, expressions blank, and she giggled again, suddenly unable to contain herself.

"You laughed," Jack breathed. "You laughed!" He'd only 'known' her for just under a year but it was the first time he'd heard it. He decided he rather liked the sound and promised himself to try and draw it out again as often as he possibly could. She was so much prettier with a smile on her face.

Realising the three bullies were well on their way to getting back on their feet, Emma made a hasty exit, Jack following after, and both of them unable to stifle their laughter.

Having prided himself on drawing kids into snowball fights and fun of all sorts, Jack had seen many smiles of many varieties, and yet he didn't even have to think about it to know that Emma's was his favourite.

No competition at all.


	43. Fun with Penguins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, Berlin, here are your penguins! I know you wanted bloopers, but I couldn't come up with much, so I hope this makes up for it ^^;
> 
> Also, I am aware of the similarity to the latest chapter of 13BlueBananas' drabble series 'Dawn of the Drabbles' (which is amazing and I highly recommend you go check it out) but Bunny was part of the request so I decided to roll with it. (I hope you don't mind 13BB!)

When Jack had mentioned the effects climate change were having on the South Pole at the last meeting, Bunny, like the other Guardians, had expected him to do something about it. But… but not this. Really, anything but this. What was the kid thinking? The Guardian of Hope, seething, silently promised to wring the little blighter's neck when he saw him next.

It was one thing to spread a little frost on his sentinel eggs or the tunnels (which he hated to the point of chasing the winter spirit around the world until he caught him) but another thing entirely to turn his Warren – a _spring_ haven – into a near perfect replica of Antarctica, complete with icebergs floating in the dye river. And if that wasn't bad enough, there was a colony of penguins huddled together right in the middle of the snow-covered clearing.

"How did he even get you here?!" Bunny asked in confused fury.

The sound of his voice attracted the large birds' attention and as one they turned to stare at him with beady eyes. Bunny stood to his full height, making it clear to them that he was boss and would not be intimidated. A rather chubby one (he couldn't be certain but he was pretty sure it was the one who had first confronted Tooth down at the Pole) stepped away from the group and waddled towards him, something held in its beak. It looked up at him expectantly until he took what turned out to be a folded piece of paper, turning away as though bored the second its duty was over.

"'Hello, my name is George,'" Bunny read aloud, raising a brow. "'I have been designated 'General Penguin' for the duration of our stay with you. Please refer to me as Sir'? What the heck is this?" he flicked the paper (which was written in a slightly messy but still elegant script that probably was the work of Jack Frost). The penguin, George, didn't even bother to look at him and started preening under one wing.

"'As you know, the South Pole has been having some trouble lately'," he continued reading. "'Jack has been trying to restore a bit of order but my colony and I do not understand the concept of not following him and have, as a result, put ourselves in some rather precarious situations that could have easily been avoided. Because of this, Jack has deemed it safer for us to remain here with you where we will not be inclined to stand in a large group on thin ice or throw ourselves off high cliffs before checking if there are predators waiting below.'"

Bunny shook his head, brow continuing to furrow the more he read. "'Jack will be back to collect us as soon as he is finished. You do not have to worry about feeding us, as we are capable of going lengths of time without food and someone will be coming to bring us some fish every now and again anyway. P.S. Do not let us leave the Warren and don't be mean to us or we will show no mercy.'"

The letter was crumpled within a furry fist and a loud, infuriated cry of 'Jack Frost' quickly followed, so loud that had there been anyone standing in the Outback near the opening to his Warren they would have heard it loud and clear. Believer or not.

 

* * *

 

North looked up from the ice block he'd been carving as something black and white moved in his peripheral vision. It was safe to say he was more than a little confused to find it was a penguin. Staring at him. Silently judging.

"Where did you come from?" he asked, gently setting his prototype aside on the bench.

The penguin didn't reply, not that he'd really been expecting one, and proceeded to fully enter the room, turning its attention to a shelf near the door. North watched in bemusement as it seemed to inspect the contents on display before apparently finding his matryoshka doll worth further investigation. The only thing that stopped North from getting up and shooing the penguin away then and there was the way it was so careful in gripping the wooden doll in its beak (and also the fact that it was there in the first place considering there weren't supposed to be penguins at the North Pole).

With surprising intelligence it managed to open the first layer, then the second, then the third, and the fourth and so on until it finally reached the centre that Jack had returned upon receiving his own. Which it then grabbed and waddled out of the room without a care in the world. It took North a minute to register what had happened before he was able to get up from his seat and chase after it.

If he'd been confused by one penguin, he was downright flabbergasted by the sight that greeted him as he entered the workshop. None of the yetis were working, all standing very still and eyeing the small group of penguins and elves who appeared to be crafting… something. He honestly wasn't overly sure what it was supposed to be. The penguin that had stolen the centre of his matryoshka was quick to rejoin the group, its friends celebrating in their own squawky way at its find.

North shook his head, ordering the yetis to just ignore it and get back to work before heading back into his office for a shot of vodka.

 

* * *

 

The Tooth Palace was its usual hubbub of tiny fairies zipping about, heading to and from the largest spire where the Tooth Fairy herself could be found issuing out orders. While she'd taken it upon herself to get out into the field more often, today was not one of those days. There was just so much to do!

Tooth paused in directing a group to San Diego when one of her fairies flew up to her, carrying on about something along the lines of penguins and teeth. More than a little confused (and 80% sure she'd heard wrong) she consented to letting the fairy direct her to the scene of the crime, a flock of her other workers following behind (probably more so in interest than having been awaiting orders).

"Wow, you really weren't kidding," she said to the fairy who had alerted her as she gazed upon the scene.

There were three emperor penguins on the American spire, each of whom were busily pulling tooth canisters out of their spots in the walls, examining them, then placing them in a pile before moving on to the next one. The seemed to notice the presence of the new arrivals as they suddenly turned to face them, unreadable expressions on their faces.

"Um, hello," Tooth greeted nervously. Honestly, how had penguins managed to get here in Asia, for goodness sake? The memory of Jack and his own colony of penguins came to mind and she briefly wondered if these were some of them.

One of the penguins chirped at her, revealing a very tooth-free beak (not including the serrated barb-like things on their tongues and roofs of their mouths). Tooth shuddered, as did her small companions and as one they slowly backed off, trying to erase the image from their minds and deciding so long as the birds didn't damage any of the canisters it should be okay to leave them be.

 

* * *

 

Sandy decided he really liked penguins. And apparently they had decided they liked him, as he was currently sitting on a sand cloud surrounded by them while they tried to preen him (not a very easy task considering he was made of sand). He'd spotted them near Jack's lake and had quickly realised they should not have been there and so descended just long enough to pick them up. How they'd ended up in North America was beyond him but he knew he would have to return them back where they came from after he was done delivering dreams in this part of the world. Which would require figuring out where, exactly, that was. It was possible they were from a zoo, but something told him they were the same ones he had met when they'd found Jack down in Antarctica.

For now, though, he had a job to do. A job the tall birds were rather delighted in; they'd probably never flown before and were getting quite the kick out of it. He did, however, have to keep an eye on them. There had been more than one occasion where one of them got a little too adventurous for comfort and actually tried to fly on its own (i.e. jumped off the cloud) and Sandy had had to catch it before it could hit the ground. No amount of disapproving looks and shaking fingers seemed to be doing much to stop the adrenalin junkies, though.

 

* * *

 

Bunny was in a state of mild panic. And he was annoyed that he even felt panicked at all. Honestly, it wasn't his responsibility to keep an eye on the bloody birds Jack had dumped on him and it certainly wasn't his fault that they'd wandered off through the tunnels when he'd turned his back. And yet there he was darting through tunnel after tunnel looking for them. He didn't even know how many had gotten out!

It was with great relief that he'd arrived at North's place to find the man himself, slightly drunk, directing him to the first group of birds, who were working with the elves to create some kind of trash-sculpture, complete with shiny wrappers for decoration. They hadn't been all too thrilled with his arrival, though, and had refused to budge when he'd told them to go down the tunnel back to the Warren. And so Bunny had tried a more forceful approach.

Big mistake. The note certainly hadn't been kidding when it said 'no mercy'. Bunny had the scratches and bruises to prove it.

It had taken the bribery of a handful of fish chucked down the hole before they would _finally_ comply with what he wanted. And then he'd been able to move on to the next location.

 

* * *

 

Tooth had been in a right state, quietly rambling about teeth and the horror that there were creatures out there who didn't have any and her own personal nightmare of 'what if _I_ didn't have teeth?'. She'd been so out of it that Bunny had needed some of the smaller fairies to show him where the culprits were.

He'd been a bit shocked at the size of the canister pile the birds had created but didn't say anything. It couldn't have been too big a deal or the fairies would have done something about it. …Right? Judging from the way they shuddered at the mere sight of the penguins' beaks told him otherwise.

Bunny was pleased to find this group a little more cooperative than the last, and it had only taken pretending to throw a tooth canister down the hole to get them to chase after it (and Bunny had found himself amused at the mental comparison he'd made to dogs).

 

* * *

 

He was still missing a few, he knew. And he needed to find them, fast. The others he'd found in the domain of the other Guardians, so maybe Sandy had seen some. But then there was the problem that Sandy was always on the move. In the air. Not only did he have no way of reaching the little man, but he also had no idea where he was.

It was while he was standing in the middle of the countryside, trying not to think about what would happen if Jack came back to find some of his penguins missing (and trying not to wonder about why he was so worried in the first place since there wasn't much worse that could be done to his Warren and he was far from scared of Jack Frost), that a stream of golden sand floating nearby caught his attention.

Heart lifting slightly, Bunny raced towards the dream sand, running a paw through it to get Sandy's attention when he was close enough. He could see a golden cloud floating in his general direction and allowed himself to relax a bit. Sandy would know where the rest of the blighters were. He hoped.

A loud squawk-like noise broke him out of his thoughts and he looked up in time to see something black and white falling through the air towards him. He barely had time to cry out before it collided with him, knocking him flat on his back.

"Ugh," Bunny groaned, lifting his head to see what had attacked him. A large penguin manoeuvred its way off of him and started waddling away. Bunny wasn't sure whether to laugh or curse every penguin and Jack Frost in existence, and instead settled for banging his head against the ground.

Sandy had finally reached him, looking rather apologetic. He created a series of images above his head and Bunny managed to get a pretty clear picture of what had happened. Or rather, not happened. He'd failed to catch a suicidal penguin.

"At least I've found some more of them," Bunny groaned, mentally tallying the group of birds and adding it to the list in his head. "I think that's all of them," he told Sandy, but in actuality he wasn't completely sure. He probably should have counted the original group before this mess had started. Or rather, he should have opened a tunnel to the South Pole and forced them all through before going and murdering Jack Frost.

Sandy formed a question mark, obviously confused about the whole situation.

"Jack Frost," was all he'd had to say and Sandy nodded knowingly.

 

* * *

 

"I'm baaack!" a painfully familiar voice called and Bunny tilted his head to see Jack landing just a few feet behind him. "Did they behave?"

"Because of you and these bloody birds, I've had to go halfway around the world collecting the bloody things!" Bunny snapped, standing to his full height and cherishing the way he towered over the winter spirit.

Jack wasn't fazed in the slightest, though. In fact, he was grinning a bit. "Well, you _were_ warned, Cottontail."

"Why the bloody hell did you leave them here? How did you even _get_ them here?"

"I left them here cause it's nice and open with plenty of room. You don't want to see a claustrophobic penguin, trust me. Oh and also to get you back for the high-heel thing. As for getting them here, well… let's just say I appealed to their more… 'adventurous' side."

"You'd better put my Warren back exactly the way it was," Bunny said threateningly.

"Sorry, can't melt ice, only make it," Jack shrugged nonchalantly. "But it should melt pretty quickly," he added after taking a look at the murderous expression on Bunny's face. "Either that or you could go find a fire spirit."

Without waiting for a reply, Jack waltzed over to the colony, greeting them all. "Did you guys have fun?"

The chirped at him in a way that could have meant anything from 'yes' to 'I like chocolate milk'.

"Hang on a minute."

Bunny involuntarily winced at the sharp tone Jack's voice had taken.

"Where's George?" the winter spirit turned to him, face a blank mask.

That name sounded familiar… oh. Oh no.

"Bunny," Jack continued, eye twitching slightly. "Where is my General Penguin?"

And that was how they all found themselves in Pitch's lair, watching in amusement as George the General Penguin cornered Pitch Black against a shadowless wall, the latter looking like he would rather be wearing a dress and singing 'I'm a Barbie Girl' than be where he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you were wondering, the 'adventurous' appeal was a huge ice slide from Antarctica to the Outback (which understandably was rather flimsy and broke a lot, but the penguins are spastic and insane so no worries)


	44. Rudolph the Irritated Reindeer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's this? Two updates in one day? Jack must have gone to Hell cause I'm pretty sure it just froze over.
> 
> But seriously, this is a rather short one so it really didn't take long to write (I saw no sense in dragging it out unnecessarily). So Seryyth, here is that Rudolph 'does he exist?' *insert Jamie impersonation here* request of yours :3

Jack stared at the large, muscular beasts North tried to call reindeer. He was pretty sure they were some kind of mutant deer at the very least, because he'd seen reindeer and they were not as bold and scary as these guys. Maybe they were part wolf. Or bear.

The deer in question didn't pay him any mind as they munched away on the hay in their stalls. When they were settled like this it was hard to connect them with the rowdy and excitable creatures he'd seen attached to the sleigh that day when they'd gone to fight for the Tooth Palace.

Looking at them made him wonder; were they the same as the ones the humans knew? He caught sight of small golden plaques attached to the wooden doors of their stalls (and it was a wonder they didn't just break out – Jack didn't doubt they could).

"Donner," he read the first one, Donner lifting his head, still chewing on a mouthful of hay. And there was Blitzen in the stall opposite. As he walked through the barn he called out each name as he passed them, "Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Cupid – heh wonder how actual Cupid feels about that – Vixen – wow, that's an unfortunate name – Comet," he paused when he reached the last stall. "Rudolph," he read and turned his gaze on the reindeer in question.

Rudolph looked at him lazily, like he couldn't even be bothered to live up to his rather threatening appearance.

"Hmm," Jack frowned. "No glowing red nose… which I guess makes sense considering the shape of reindeer noses."

The look Rudolph gave him could easily have been interpreted as ' _You only just figured that out?'_

A warbling from the doorway made Jack turn. One of the yetis had walked in with a fresh bale of hay in hand. It waved in greeting and Jack smiled back. He didn't know this particular yeti's name, but he supposed it didn't really matter. There were heaps of them, after all, and he couldn't really be expected to remember them all. He would bet that North did, though.

The yeti deposited the bale in the corner before approaching him, picking up what he was looking at fairly quickly. It waved a hand and said something, then left to enter a storage room. Jack had no idea what it was getting at and shrugged, returning his attention to Rudolph.

The yeti was back momentarily, something clasped in its hand. Rudolph didn't put up a fuss when the yeti reached out and secured the something over his muzzle, though he did look a little exasperated.

"Is that…?" Jack grinned when he got a good look at what the yeti had done. And then proceeded to laugh, earning a snort from Rudolph. "Well, I guess that's where the red nose thing comes from, huh?"

The yeti had fastened some kind of large red bauble (that looked suspiciously like it belonged on a Christmas tree instead of an animal's face) to the end of the deer's nose. The yeti gestured as it spoke trying to convey further information.

"Um, I'm just gonna take a stab here and guess that it's only used in fog and bad weather?" Jack said with a raised brow.

The yeti nodded approvingly.

"Well there you go," Jack muttered. "Man do I feel bad for you, though," he told the deer. "No wonder they picked on you…"

Actually, now that he thought about it, he found himself having a lot in common with the deer (which sounded ridiculous even as he thought it) – assuming the real Rudolph was anything like the one from the Christmas song. Outcasted for being different and shunned until they were given the chance to prove themselves.

"Okay, that's enough philosophical thinking for one day," Jack said, turning to head out of the barn. North was probably wondering where he went, anyway.

The yeti looked at him strangely, which wasn't all that surprising, and proceeded to follow him out. It wasn't until they were gone that Rudolph realised that neither of them had remembered to take the blasted light off his nose.


	45. Jack vs. Technology

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what's gotten into me but I'm doing a lot of writing, so who's complaining, right? XD
> 
> This is a follow up of 'Hearing Voices' and a collaboration of the requests from NorthernMage and SonYukiGoku'sSister who wanted to see iPads and iPods respectively.

Unfortunately, Cupcake had kept her word about the whole 'modernising thing'. Well, unfortunate for Jack; Cupcake, Jamie, and all their friends looked like they were having the time of their life. And they hadn't even started yet. Why he was putting up with their sympathetic looks and explanations that he wasn't stupid, just 'technologically challenged' was a mystery even to him.

"Here, we'll start with something easy," Jamie was saying and he forced himself out of his thoughts of thrashing them in their next snowball fight to pay attention. Jamie was holding something rectangular out to him and he took it with a raised brow. "This is a calculator," Jamie continued.

The other brow rose to join its brother.

"You use it to do hard sums and things," Monty explained.

"Yes, thank you for that, I _do_ actually know what a calculator is," Jack said dryly.

"Do you know how to use one?" Cupcake asked with an air that suggested she was expecting the answer to be 'no'.

He had known about calculators for a long while. They had been quite popular ever since they came out, now found pretty much everywhere. Had he ever used one? No. Did he know _how_ to use one? Well… he was leaning more towards yes. He had always needed to do mathematics in his head or on paper, not that he really knew all that much about maths. Nor had he ever really _needed_ to. He probably would have if he hadn't fallen through the ice but that was a bit redundant now.

"Let's see…" he said, pressing the 'on' button (and being thankful that it was clearly labelled). "Um, fifty two multiplied by seventy…" he pressed each button in turn successfully. So far so good. "Equals… three thousand, six hundred and forty." He grinned triumphantly, holding the device up for the teenagers to see.

"Now clear it," Cupcake challenged.

Jack blinked. "What?"

"Clear it."

Jack let his gaze slowly drift back to the small device and stared at the buttons, trying to find one with 'clear' written on it. His eyes eventually landed on a 'C' and, hoping he was right, pressed it. The screen went blank, which meant he'd either achieved what he'd wanted or he'd broken it. "Haha!" he cried victoriously, waving it in her face. It was a fluke and a lucky guess but he wasn't about to tell her that.

Cupcake looked suspicious but didn't say anything.

"Okay, try this one," Claude broke in, holding out a cable connected to two weird bulby things.

He'd seen people walking around with them in their ears all the time so he was fairly confident he knew what to do with them. When no one laughed when he put them in his ears (noting the little L and R to tell him which was which) he assumed he'd done it right.

Caleb leaned over his brother's shoulder and pressed something on the little device. Sudden loud music blared in Jack's ears and he jumped so badly he fell off the bed with a yelp that he would deny making until the end of time. He tried to cover his ears to muffle the offending sound but it only made it worse.

"Make it stop!" he yelled, sighing in relief when Jamie reached over and yanked the little bulby things from his ears. "What were you trying to do, deafen me?" he shot at the twins. The music could still be heard from where the 'earphones' were lying on the floor.

"Sorry, I forgot how loud it was!" Claude apologised. "Here, I've turned it down. Put them back in."

"No," Jack said instantly. "Those _things_ are never going near me again."

"Here, Jack," Pippa passed him a large, flat version of Jamie's button-challenged phone. "It's called a tablet, or specifically an 'iPad' in this case."

This… this was not a tablet. Tablets were things you swallowed. Or those stone things people engraved. This was a flat piece of metal and plastic that looked as though it could be snapped in half with very minimal effort. He didn't voice any of this, of course.

"What does it do?" he asked warily.

"It's like a small, touch screen computer," she said, pressing a button at the top and lighting up the screen. "These things are called apps, short of applications," she pointed to the little colourful squares dotted across the screen, "and there are heaps of them that do all sorts of things."

Jack cautiously touched one of the 'apps' and instantly the screen changed, bringing up more little squares, but this time depicting the faces of Pippa and her friends. His first thought was ' _how the heck did she get copies of herself on this thing?!'_ but then he remembered cameras and supposed one of those must be in the device.

"Hey, I have an idea!" Jamie called out, looking over his shoulder.

He pressed the button under the screen and then selected another app. Jack tried not to freak out when he suddenly found himself staring at himself and part of Jamie and Pippa like it had become some kind of mirror. Jamie pushed himself closer until his whole head fit into the screen before touching the screen. There was a clicking noise and Jamie expertly navigated the iPad again until the image of the two of them was back on the screen, this time not moving.

"It worked!" he cheered.

"Yeah, but to some people it will probably look like you just took a really bad selfie of yourself," Pippa said.

"What else can it do?" Jack asked, fiddling with buttons and on-screen directions.

"What do you want it to do?"

Jack shrugged.

"Probably the biggest part of modernising you would be to introduce you to the internet," Caleb said, moving over to them and pressing an app with a picture of a blue compass on it.

Jack wanted to say he knew exactly what the internet was but then they would come back by pointing out that he had no idea how to use it so he kept his mouth shut. After a brief tutorial, they'd left him to his own devices in exploring the World Wide Web while they'd gone downstairs to get a snack.

By the time they got back Jack was frustrated to say the least.

"Are… you okay?" Jamie asked cautiously, putting a plate of cookies down on his dresser.

"The stupid page keeps moving when I go to press something and I end up on some other page that I never wanted in the first place!" Jack raged, jabbing at the screen like he was trying to stab it. "And _why are there so many pictures of cats?!_ " When they started seeing lines of frost creeping along the edges of the iPad Pippa hurried forwards and took it from him.

"What about a video game, then?" Claude suggested.

 

* * *

 

Jack was torn between whether he loved video games or hated them. On the one hand they were quite fun and some of them allowed you to play with/against your friends, but on the other… well… he _sucked_ at them. No matter what game they played his character would always meet an untimely end and by the end of an hour his eye was twitching.

The others exchanged looks, silently agreeing that maybe they shouldn't have made Jack play games when he was already slightly wound up. Especially when they'd realised just how bad he was at them.

"Um… we could try phones?" Monty hesitantly suggested. Jack's gaze snapped to him.

He remembered phones alright. Cupcake looked like she wasn't sure whether to laugh or run away. "No," Jack breathed. "Just… no. I'm done. Forgive me for being born and raised in the 18th century. I don't care if you call me old or 'technologically challenged' or whatever, I'm done. I'm just gonna go… freeze… something."

None of them liked the malicious glint in his eyes and decided they'd rather not know what that 'something' was.

"I'll see you guys later when I'm calm again," Jack said in way of parting before jumping out the window and flying off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll leave the 'something' to your own imaginations ;)


	46. Temper Tantrums

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some May-Jack bonding time, as requested by both Shamangirl1 and 13BlueBananas (both FFN) (which was ages ago, sorry it took so long ^^;)

He probably should have moved on by now; it was already a few weeks into spring, after all. But Jack couldn't bring himself to head down to Antarctica just yet. It was almost Easter and he wanted to watch the kids get all excited about Bunny's hard work (but making sure to stay out of the Pooka's sight so as not to get shooed away. Bunny may have forgiven him about the '68 incident, but he wasn't going to take any chances in bringing up old wounds).

What was even stranger for him was that he wasn't spending the last few weeks of his time by his lake; in fact he wasn't in Burgess at all. Instead, he was flying over England, taking in the sights and just enjoying the slightly warmer than normal breeze. Just because he was the embodiment of winter didn't mean he didn't like a little bit of warmth every now and then.

"Jack!"

Surprised by the sudden call of his name, Jack paused in midair, searching around him for the source of the familiar voice. A girl in a white dress and a matching sun hat suddenly flew up before him.

"Oh, hey, May," he greeted. "Nice hat."

"You like it? Can you believe it was just lying abandoned in a park?" she seemed a little taken aback by the compliment.

"Really? It's amazing what people just leave lying around, huh? Similar story with my hoodie."

May blinked, her whole demeanour changing from pleasant conversation to a rather flustered panic. "Oh, Jack! I need your help!"

Jack's eyes widened appropriately, easily picking up on her distress. "Me? You need ice and snow in spring?"

"Yes! Please, if we don't stop it everything will be destroyed!"

"Um, okay?" he was about to ask just what 'it' was but at his acquiescence she had heaved a huge sigh of relief and zipped off again in a dance of petals. "Whoa! Wait up!" he called to her, urging his own wind to help him catch up.

"May!" he shouted over the billowing wind speeding them along. "What exactly are we trying to stop?!"

"That!" she replied in a similarly raised tone, pointing down to the earth below.

Jack followed her finger with his eyes, faltering midflight as he took in the scene. May stopped just ahead of him when she realised he was no longer following.

"Please, we have to hurry!" she begged.

"Oh… right, I'm coming!" Jack re-angled himself, letting himself freefall in the direction of the torrent of water forcing its way through the countryside, swallowing everything in its path. The wind caught him just before he could dive head-first into the river and he immediately set to work, freezing large sections of the water at a time.

But in the warm sun and with the torrent unending, each chunk of ice he created was quickly overrun and destroyed, more water surging forward to replace it.

"This isn't going to work," he frowned as May came to a halt beside him, looking uncharacteristically worried.

"Th-There has to be something you can do!"

"What about trees?" he asked her. "If there's enough of them it should stop the land from falling away."

"I've tried that, but this isn't a regular flood."

Jack's brow furrowed as he tried to figure out what she meant by that. May bit her lip and looked away guiltily, understanding exactly what he was thinking.

"I… may have… gotten into a fight with some water nymphs…" she admitted.

Jack stared at her. "I'm sorry, you what?"

"Well, they were refusing to let me melt the snow around their river but I have to, it's part of my job, and I guess… they didn't take it very well."

Jack shook his head. "Only you, May," he muttered. "Only you."

The expression on her face turned to a mix of indignation and what appeared to be her attempt to hold back a lecture on the importance of seasonal duties.

"What I don't understand," Jack continued, cutting off the rant before it could begin, "is why cause a flood? Of all the ways they could have reacted, it just doesn't make sense. What do they have to gain by destroying the land?"

"It's not the land they're after," May said sadly. "It's my garden."

Oh. Oh that was not good. She had said that that garden was her pride and joy. Jack had never seen it, but he had no doubt it would be spectacular and a great crime for it (and her house) to get washed away just because of a few angry water spirits.

"Okay, I have an idea," he told her. "You go and try to redirect the flow of water. I've got some ladies to visit."

 

* * *

 

It was a simple matter of following the flooding river to find the nymphs responsible. It certainly didn't hurt that they were cackling maliciously as they surveyed their handy work, either. They spotted him approaching from above fairly quickly, not that he'd expected a subtle entrance. But, interestingly, they didn't seem displeased to see him.

"Jack Frost!" the one with short cropped dark blue hair gasped. "Hello, Jack Frost~"

Her sisters followed her gaze, smiling themselves as they noticed him.

"Welcome, Jack Frost~" the shortest with long sea-green hair waved.

"Oh how lovely to see you~" the last, tallest one beamed, flicking her curly aqua hair out of her face.

"Hi, ladies," Jack greeted awkwardly, stopping to hover in front of them. This wasn't the first time he'd spoken to them but he wasn't used to such a friendly welcome. Well, he supposed, nymphs were rather fickle creatures.

"What brings you here?" the short one asked.

"I'm actually here to ask you to call off your rampage," he admitted, pointing his staff at the water flowing underneath them.

"Oooooh~" the sisters crowed in disappointment.

"But Jaaaack!" the dark blue haired one whined.

"She started it!" the shortest added.

"By melting all the snow we were playing in!" the aqua haired one finished.

"Is destroying her home really the best way to deal with the situation?" Jack raised a brow.

The sisters pouted.

"I'll tell you what," Jack compromised, ignoring the little voice in the back of his mind that told him he was going to get an earful from not just May but Bunny, too. "If you stop this flood, I promise to give you as much snow to play in as you like."

The women's eyes lit up like beacons.

"Really?!"

"Oooooh will you play with us, too?"

"Yes, play with us, Jack~"

"Really. And sure, I'll play with you. But not for too long; I'll need to get moving south soon," Jack nodded.

"Okay!" all three chimed, and with a mere wave of their hands the flood water lifted up in a swirling tunnel and began travelling back to the river bed it had come from.

Jack breathed a sigh of relief as he watched them direct it away.

"Are you coming, Jack Frost?" the green haired one asked, looking back at him.

"I'll be there in a moment!"

 

* * *

 

"I don't know how you did it, but thank you!" May cried as soon as she spotted him, throwing her arms around him in a rather unexpected embrace.

"Um, you're welcome," Jack replied, hesitating only a moment before returning the hug.

May quickly realised what she was doing and released him, clearing her throat awkwardly.

"So this is your garden?" Jack asked, sparing her the embarrassment.

"Oh, yes," she smiled, looking back at the small cottage so buried in flowers and crawling plants that it was almost impossible to see. But while it was chaos, it wasn't a cluttered chaos. Each and every flower had been positioned exactly and deliberately and it was truly the most colourful place Jack had ever seen.

"It's incredible," he said truthfully, overcome by awe. Being a winter spirit meant he didn't get a lot of time to admire the beauty of spring, but here it was encompassed perfectly. And May _lived there._ "It suits you."

"Thank you," she breathed. "So… how did you stop it?"

Jack hesitated. He knew how strongly May of all people felt about work and schedules and things like that, and he knew she wouldn't be happy when she found out. His one saving grace was that the river was a reasonable distance from where anyone lived so Bunny would have no _real_ reason to be snippy (he would be anyway, though).

"I… promised to give the snow back."

"You did _what?_ "

"The snow…" he didn't like the look on her face. "If you just leave it be, it'll melt naturally by tomorrow morning! Besides, it's a small price to pay to keep your garden above water, right?"

"I suppose you're right," she sighed.

"Good, now come on," he grabbed her hand and started dragging her towards the river, ignoring her confused protests.

 

* * *

 

"I'm back!" Jack called as he and May touched down on the riverbank.

The nymphs appeared almost instantly to greet him but their joyous expressions faded when they caught sight of his 'plus one'.

"What is she-"

"-doing here?" they hissed.

"She's here to apologise, aren't you May?" Jack smirked. May looked horrified at the thought. "And then you ladies are going to apologise for trying to drown her." The nymphs' expressions matched May's. "And then we're going to have some fun, okay?"

It took no less than four 'fun flakes' to get them all to comply, but as soon as the flakes hit them they were beaming and laughing like a bunch of little kids. May didn't even seem to mind she was standing ankle deep in snow or that her hair was dotted in snowflakes. Jack could happily say it was the most fun afternoon he'd had since spring had started and he had no doubt that the others would agree.


	47. Father Figure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So guess what? That's right, this isn't just an update. IT'S A DOUBLE UPDATE! That's right, folks, my father needed the internet so I had nothing to distract me and ended up writing two whole chapters.
> 
> Also, I'm aware it isn't father's day but I figured SonYukiGoku'sSister didn't want to wait months for their request to finally get written. And while we're on the subject of requests, I've gotten myself a bit more organised so if you've sent me a request I can tell you exactly where you are in the queue :3
> 
> Enjoy some fluffy feels~

For a long time Father's Day hadn't meant anything to Jack Frost. Unlike on Mother's Day, when he'd go and have lunch with Mother Nature (that is, until he remembered his human life and he found himself with one extra person to visit), he didn't really have anyone worth celebrating (because Father Time was definitely out of the question and Old Man Winter scared him…). Of course, that is, until now. As expected he went to his father's grave for a while to pay his respects and to chat to the guy he could barely remember, but there was one additional person who had recently come into his life whom Jack couldn't _not_ consider a sort of father figure.

 

* * *

 

Nicholas St. North was a busy man, always working hard to make sure each Christmas was just as brilliant as the last, if not more so. If someone had asked him, he would have quite accurately given them the date, time and exactly how long it was until Christmas, down to the last second. Had you asked if there was any special event occurring on said day, well, that would have been a little harder.

North didn't really have a need to celebrate Father's Day, what with his father having been long gone by this point and his own lack of children, adopted or otherwise. Sure, sometimes he felt like the Guardians' newest member was something like the son he never had, but he was sure such a notion would make the boy uncomfortable and didn't want to press the matter.

So when Jack turned up of his own devices early that afternoon, North was a tad confused to say the least.

"Jack!" he greeted joyously, looking up from the clipboard he'd been signing. "What brings you to Pole?"

In that moment Jack was the epitome of awkward. He was fidgeting, avoiding eye contact and looked ready to bolt at a moment's notice. Suddenly thinking there might be an important matter to attend to, North handed the clipboard to a passing yeti and gave the winter spirit his full attention.

"Is everything alright?" he asked gently.

"Oh, um, yeah, everything's fine," Jack replied nervously, looking up to meet the older man's eyes only momentarily. He absently switched his staff to the other hand. "Just… I just wanted to come by and… say hi." He winced at his own words, as if that hadn't been what he'd wanted to say.

"Oh, well hello, then," North smiled anyway. "You know you are always welcome here."

"I know, thanks."

"How is off-season?"

"Not bad. I miss playing with the kids, though," Jack finally looked him in the eye, seeming to have relaxed slightly. North counted that as a win.

"Is only for few months, then you can go have all the snowball fights you like!"

"Yeah."

It was silent for a moment, neither really knowing how to carry on the conversation.

"So, um, you're probably busy so I'd best be going," Jack pointed weakly to the window he'd flown in through and started to slowly walk towards it.

North watched him go, trying to judge if Jack would reveal his true reasons for turning up and earlier uncomfortableness or if he'd have to try and drag it out of him. The latter proved unnecessary, however, as Jack paused mid-step and hung his head.

"No, wait," the boy sighed, turning back to face him. "That's not why I came here."

North smiled knowingly. "Is there something you wanted to talk about?"

Jack stopped before him and, looking steadfastly at the ground, reached into his hoodie pocket and pulled out something wrapped in newspaper, holding it out to him.

"What is this?" North asked, gently taking aforementioned object, honest to goodness confused.

"Sorry about the wrapping," Jack said guiltily. "I used what I could find."

"Is fine, Jack," North said. Slightly bemused, he pried off the newspaper, letting its contents fall gently into his hand. It was a small photo of them all that he remembered being taken during one of their rowdier 'meetings', framed in wood decorated with paint, sand, feathers and frost. It had a very homemade feel to it, but North couldn't help but feel that just made it all the more special and beautiful.

"The others helped," Jack quickly explained, watching his expression intently.

"Is wonderful," North said, clapping a hand on Jack's shoulder. "And I should know."

His approval seemed to relieve Jack as some of the tenseness evaporated from his shoulders.

"But why sudden gift?"

And the tension was back. "Oh… um…" Jack awkwardly switched staff hands again and rubbed the back of his neck. "Well… you know today is Father's Day… and I figured you're kinda like a father figure… so…"

Jack didn't get the chance to finish before North swept him up in a bone-crushing hug that he was clearly not prepared for.

"Um… North," he wheezed, "I can't breathe."

"Oh, sorry," North smiled sheepishly, setting the boy back onto his feet. "Thank you, Jack. I will treasure it."

Jack looked pleased, but awkwardly so and made to step towards the window again. "Okay, well, I really should go."

"Come back anytime; you are always welcome."

Jack nodded and with a small smile flew off in a burst of wind.

North watched him go, then looked back down at the photo he was still holding. He knew the perfect spot for it. Setting the frame down on the desk in his office, he got back to work on double checking the list, glancing up every now and then to gaze at the photo and wonder what he had done to become so blessed that he deserved to have such a wonderful family.


	48. Guardian of Funny Tasting Eggnog

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 here for AO3's very own Anna. Do enjoy :3

Jack was pretty sure eggnog wasn't the only thing in the… well, the eggnog by the time he left the Guardian meeting that day. But he shrugged off the strange feeling building up inside him and made his steady (steady probably wasn't the right word, considering he was swerving and dropping all over the place) way back towards Antarctica (why he hadn't just stayed at the North Pole was irrelevant and unimportant).

He'd only gotten about halfway there when he suddenly switched trajectory, a _fantastic_ idea coming to mind. He barely even noticed the increasing fluctuation of his flying pattern as he made his unsteady way to where he knew Ceres to be.

"There's my favourite autumn seasonal spirit!" he cried as he dropped down before her, stumbling upon landing. And then he started laughing. "Heh, it's funny cause you're the _only_ autumn seasonal spirit."

Ceres looked less than thrilled to see him and opened her mouth to tell him just that, but her irritation turned to confusion as she got a good look at him.

"Are… Are you drunk?" she asked.

"I drunk eggnog," he said brightly, and Ceres was so bemused she didn't even notice the poor grammar.

"Are you sure it was eggnog?"

"It tasted funny."

Ceres resisted the urge to bang her head against a tree. "You noticed it had a funny taste but you _kept drinking?_ "

"I'm the Guardian of Fun. Funny is what I do."

Ceres opened her mouth, paused, closed it, and took a deep, calming breath. "Why did you come here?" she forced herself to ask.

"Cause…" he cut himself off, looking to be in deep thought before his smile increased tenfold. "I don't even know," he laughed.

The added chill to the air brought about by the winter spirit's presence caused some leaves from a nearby tree to let go of their branch; an occurrence that did not go unnoticed by the season's herald.

"Okay," she said, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him into the air. "Let's go find May."

Jack looked ecstatic at the development. "Yay~ She's my favourite spring seasonal spirit!" and then started laughing again.

"You can go mess up her season," Ceres muttered darkly.

 

* * *

 

May was not as happy to see Jack and Ceres as Jack was to see her.

"Maaaaay~" he beamed, forcing her into an embrace that could rival North's on the bone-cracking meter.

May looked over his shoulder at the older woman. "What are you two doing here? And Jack if you could let me go it would be appreciated."

"I wasn't sure what to do with him so I brought him to you," Ceres shrugged as Jack set the brunette back on the ground.

"That's not true," Jack said knowingly, ignoring the glare he was receiving and shaking his finger at her. "She said 'you can go mess up her season'."

May blinked and turned her hardened gaze on Ceres. "Ceres…"

"He's drunk!" the autumn spirit groaned. "That sorry excuse of a Guardian let a fourteen year old drink alcohol!"

"Noooo," Jack protested. "I'm not fourteen! I'm _three hundred_ and fourteen. Duh."

"I should skin North alive," Ceres seethed, ignoring the younger spirit.

"I think I might help you with that," May said, glancing at Jack. "So what do you expect me to do with him?"

"I don't know, I just didn't want him turning the season too quickly."

"So you thought it would be a good idea to bring him here?!"

"What do you want from me?!"

"Stooooop! Don't fight!" Jack intervened, pushing them apart. "Fighting's not good. It hurts people's feelings. You should be happy to talk to each other."

The two women said nothing.

"You know what we should do?!" Jack gasped.

Ceres and May were pretty sure they didn't want to know.

"We should swap seasons!"

 

* * *

 

"LLEU!"

Lleu lazily opened one eye at the twin cry of his name. The voices sounded awfully familiar but what would those two be doing all the way out here?

"We know you're in there! Get out here right now or we'll force our way in!"

Lleu sighed, pushing himself up from the hammock he'd been lying in and walked around the side of his beach house until he could see three spirits standing in his doorway. He really didn't want to have to get a new door.

"Are you guys looking for me?" he asked with a raised brow.

The two women of the group looked beyond relieved and a little bit manic upon seeing him and hurriedly grabbed the third member of their party and shoved him forwards. Jack looked a little disorientated at the sudden movement but his eyes lit up when they caught sight of the summer spirit.

"It's Lleu!" he cried, happily staggering his way towards him with his arms open like he was going to hug him.

Lleu hastily dodged the 'attack', moving over to the two other seasonals while Jack looked around as though he had absolutely no idea where his target had gone.

"Does someone want to explain to me what, exactly, is going on? Why in Mother's name did you think bringing a winter spirit to _Hawaii_ would be a good idea? And what the heck is wrong with him?" he pointed to Jack, who was currently having a very animated conversation with a tree.

"He told me he drank some funny tasting eggnog," Ceres deadpanned.

"In other words he's drunk."

"You're so smart," Lleu jumped as Jack suddenly threw an arm around his shoulders. His awed face swiftly morphed into a frown and he looked for all the world like he was thinking very hard. "Can you smell something burning?"

Lleu's eyes widened. "It's your arm, St. Bernard!" he cried, forcefully removing the winter spirit from his person. "Are you crazy? Do you _want_ to fry like a steak on a barbeque?!"

Jack gasped. "We should have a barbeque! We could invite Bunny! And he'd say 'throw another shrimp on the barbie, mate'," his attempt at an Australian accent was terrible but what was more horrifying was the fact that he didn't even notice that he'd just done the equivalent of touching the stove.

"You know, maybe we _should_ take him to Bunny," Ceres pondered.

"Ceres!" May snapped, although from the look on her face she'd been thinking the same thing.

"Ugh, what are we going to do with him?" Lleu groaned.

"I love you guys," Jack suddenly said, his voice dead serious. The other three stared at him. "No, really. I don't know what I'd do without you. For you to have accepted me like you have means more than you can know."

Several seconds of intense silence followed. Just when Lleu was going to ask if he was actually drunk at all, Jack practically pounced on May.

"Your hair is so pretty~" he told her. "And the flowers are pretty~ I wish I could put flowers in my hair~"

May, face completely blank of expression, carefully extracted a blossom from her braid and tucked it behind Jack's ear. The effect was immediate. They couldn't tell what the effect was, but it was definitely immediate. He smiled at her hugely with watery eyes and they all hurriedly dug for something to say before Jack could start crying. That was one thing they _really_ didn't know how to deal with.

"So really, what do we do?" Ceres spared them all.

"I guess we'll just have to keep an eye on him until it leaves his system," Lleu sighed. "I'd say we dump him on North – it _is_ his fault, after all – but we can't get there without freezing our butts off. And we can't just leave Jack on his own, either. Who knows what kind of trouble he could get himself into."

"How long do you think it'll take?" May eyed Jack who by this point had sat down and was drawing in the sand with his staff.

"I don't know, I can't say I've ever had to deal with a situation like this."

"I don't feel so good," Jack declared, gaining all their attentions. It was only then that they noticed the thin layer of sweat beading on his forehead.

"For now I say we get him somewhere low temperature. Maybe it'll help."

There were no arguments, so Ceres marched forwards and threw the boy over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes before they headed back to autumn, Ceres grumbling and threatening Jack not to screw up her season the whole way.

 

* * *

 

"Maybe we should go get one of the Guardians," May suggested. They were settled around Jack's lake, the spirit in question sitting by the shore and freezing ripples on the surface.

At the sound of her suggestion, Jack's head shot in her direction, a horrified look on his face.

"You're not going to leave, are you?" he asked, crawling over to her and grabbing her arm. "Please don't leave! I don't want to be alone again."

"Relax, Snow Cone," Lleu reassured him. "We're not going anywhere."

"You promise?"

"Promise."

Jack's body sagged in relief.

Ceres suddenly smiled maliciously. Lleu and May exchanged uneasy glances. "Hey, Jack?" she began with a falsely sweet voice.

"Yeah?" Jack snapped to attention like a puppy who'd just gotten called for food.

"Do you think you could do us a little favour?"

"What is it? What can I do?!"

"Could you somehow manage to get us one of North's magical snow globes?"

Realising where this was going, Lleu and May's expressions slowly changed to match their elder's.

"Um, I guess so," Jack tilted his head.

"Wonderful. But he can't know you've taken it. Got it?"

"Got it!" Jack saluted, pulling himself to his feet where he stumbled and leaned on his staff for support.

May grabbed his arm before he could take off. "Not right now," she said. "Wait until you're less… intoxicated."

"Okay!" Jack agreed, plonking himself back down and smiling to himself like he was the happiest guy in the world. "Hey, have I ever told you guys how much I love you?"

"Multiple times," Ceres said dryly.

"Oh. …Did you know we can't die?" Apparently immune to the somewhat horrified looks on their faces (not because they hadn't known (because they did) but because Jack had felt the need to bring it up at all), he continued, "It's true. I found that out in the denial stage."

"I have a feeling I'm going to regret this," Lleu murmured. "What do you mean 'denial stage'?"

Jack looked at him like he was stupid. "There are three stages when it comes to death, but I figure they work just as well for immortality," he told them. "First there's denial, then there's fear, and then there's acceptance. It took a while to reach the acceptance stage. But it was worth it. I was still lonely but it wasn't quite so bad anymore, you know?"

"…Man I wish I could hug you without burning you alive."

"Here, I'll do it for you," May whispered, wrapping her arms around the winter spirit who had started crying and was looking confused as to why.

 

* * *

 

By the time Jack had finally worn himself out, the other three seasonals had reached the end of their seemingly limitless patience. The thought of giving North a piece of their mind was really the only thing keeping them sane.

"By the end of this _I'm_ going to need a drink," Ceres groaned, running a hand down her tired face.

"If you come to me intoxicated I will take you to some uninhabited island and leave you there," May threatened.

"At least he's asleep now," Lleu pointed out.

Ceres, who was currently being leaned on by said sleeping winter spirit, did not completely agree. "If he drools on me there'll be hell to pay."

"Save it for North."

When Jack awoke it was to a pounding headache and a greatly protesting stomach. And three other seasonals who looked far from happy to see him.

"Ugh," he groaned, sitting upright (and realising with absolute horror who he'd been sleeping on). "What happened?"

"You were drunk," Lleu told him.

"…I was? That would explain why I feel like throwing up, I guess."

"Well, now that you're clearly back to your senses, it's time to make good on your promise," Ceres said.

"What promise?"

 

* * *

 

They followed him as far as the northernmost parts of Russia, making sure he was actually able to fly without falling out of the sky before they were comfortable with letting him cover the last remaining distance alone. Jack had been rather confused as to why they'd wanted him to sneak them a snow globe, but after clearly having taken care of him in his less than sane state, he shrugged it off as being a small price to pay. (He hadn't even wanted to know the details.)

Sneaking into the Workshop now that he was actually allowed there was far less of a challenge than he'd anticipated and it was almost disappointing how easily he'd managed to get in, grab a snow globe and get out again without being noticed by anyone at all.

He swiftly delivered the goods, firmly told them he didn't want to know what they were planning and threatened to bury them all in snow if they told anyone they'd gotten it from him, before flying off for Antarctica with the sole intention of burying himself in a snowdrift for a week.

 

* * *

 

North whistled merrily to himself as he took another swig of his vodka-laced eggnog and chipped off a bit of ice from his current project.

He nearly dropped his cup when a portal opened up in front of him and three rather angry looking seasonal spirits stepped out. It was funny how intimidating they could be when they made those expressions despite the fact that they were almost half his size.

"Nicholas St. North," one of them said sternly, "we need to talk."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo the three stages thing kinda sneaked up on me there. It is something I firmly believe in and I am currently in stage 2, myself. Whether accidentally or deliberately, I think his immortality is something he would have had to have come to realise at some point in his spirit life. Also, I'd just like to say that to live in isolation like that for 300 years, (to quote Pitch:) 'unseen, unable to reach out to anyone', depression is something that's more than likely to kick in. It's a horrible thing to suffer through and to anyone who is suffering through it, please know you have my support.


	49. Action and Reaction (G.o.F.T.E. Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Seryyth and SanctuaryInMusic wanted to see a sort of sequel of sorts to the previous chapter. How could I say no?
> 
> Enjoy, my sadistic little angels.

"Nicholas St. North," the only male member of the party – Lleu if he remembered correctly – said with a scowl. "We need to talk."

Had that been one of his snow globes?

The man in question carefully set down his drink and his project, knowing he probably wasn't going to come out of this unscathed. Whatever he'd done to upset the three seasonal spirits, it was big. But none of that wouldn't stop him from being the hospitable person he was.

"Eggnog?" he offered, holding up the jug.

Clearly that had not been the right thing to do. Their disapproving frowns if anything became barely contained fury.

"Let's skip the talking and just kill him now," the elder woman, a plump woman dressed in shades of brown and orange said manically, pounding her fist into her hand.

"Ceres!" the one in white snapped. "We're not here to kill him!"

"Funny, if I recall correctly you said you would help me skin him alive."

North was suddenly very decidedly uncomfortable. "What is this about?" he decided to ask lest they get any bright ideas about what to do with him.

"Oh don't give me that," Ceres glared. "You know exactly what this is about."

No… no, he really didn't.

"Wait, ladies, I really think he doesn't know," Lleu said, watching North carefully.

Well, at least one of them had some sense.

"Eggnog, North," the one in white told him, hands on her hips. "This is about eggnog and underage drinking."

Ooooh. Well, that explained their rather adverse reaction to his offering.

"Because of you," Ceres cut in, "we had to deal with a drunken winter spirit." Her companions winced as if even the memory was painful.

North couldn't help it. The mental image of Jack's antics fuelled by alcohol was too much. He laughed. Another mistake.

"I don't think you understand," the other woman placed her hands on his desk and leaned towards him. "Do you have any idea what you've done? Do you have any inkling of what we've just been through?"

"Couldn't have been that bad," North waved her off. "Was only teeny bit and Jack was fine when he left here."

"He… he just admitted it wasn't an accident," Lleu gaped. "I was prepared to let him off with a warning, but if that's the case we can't let this slide."

"Couldn't have been that bad?!" Ceres raged. " _Couldn't have been that bad?!_ That boy is already a few eggs short of a dozen, he doesn't need your help making it worse!"

"He's not the only one 'a few eggs short of a dozen'," the other girl muttered. North really needed to figure out what her name was.

"You tell me how _having him burn himself on me without even realising_ isn't 'that bad'," Lleu said threateningly. "Tell me how having him _try to fly to space cause he 'heard it's nice this time of year'_ isn't 'that bad'! _We had to hold him down until he found something more interesting to do._ Have you ever tried to hold down a determined and struggling winter spirit?"

Okay, yeah, that was pretty bad.

"I think our friend North here needs to be punished. What do you think, May?"

Oh, that was her name.

May turned to her companion, face stern. "I agree."

"Ceres?"

"Most. Definitely."

Then they all turned and stalked out of the room. This… wasn't good.

"Oh, hey," Lleu's head popped back in through the doorway. "Could we get a snow globe? We have no way of getting out of this place."

North blinked. "How did you get the one that got you here?"

The summer seasonal suddenly looked rather uncomfortable as though remembering some past threat. "Ummm… that's not important. So can we or would you prefer we just stay here forever?"

"No, you can have one," North hastily reached into his coat and pulled out a globe for the summer spirit.

"Cheers," Lleu smiled (but not a pleasant one, mind you), easily snatching the globe out of the air. And then he was gone.

 

* * *

 

It wasn't until he entered the Workshop some hours later that North realised what his 'punishment' was. And he was fairly sure it was ten times worse than anything Jack could have done while drunk. As he watched the elves happily stagger around, hiccupping every now and then and drinking vast quantities of spiked eggnog as they pretty much destroyed the workshop, he silently vowed to never get on the seasonal spirits' bad sides ever again.


	50. Quite a Spectacle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess what, folks? It's another double update! (Cause dad stole the internet again and I have no life) Yaaaay~
> 
> Also, I would like to thank you all for your show of support last chapter, although I think I may have accidentally misled a few people ^^; I'm perfectly okay and I have no intention of going anywhere anytime soon :3 My 'three stages' comment was in relation more to the idea of death rather than actually experiencing it.
> 
> Okay, ThirtySixBuns, this one's for you!

Bunny grumbled to himself, arms crossed over his chest and foot tapping an irregular beat on the wooden floorboards. He really should have been used to Jack's tardiness by now, even if it had been less and less frequent since he'd acquired a watch. And yet there he was, irritated that the younger spirit was late. Again. He turned his gaze over to North, ready to take out his frustration on the man. North, however, anticipated what the Pooka was going to say and cut that conversation off before it could begin.

"He has just lost track of time," the Cossack waved flippantly.

"The least 'e could do is show up!"

Tooth paused in directing her fairies to pay attention the conversation. Sandy continued to snooze obliviously.

"He has been here for while. As I say, he has lost track of time."

Bunny paused, a confused furrow in his brow. "Wait, what?"

"He arrived this morning; said he knew meeting was today and had nothing better to do."

"Where is he then?"

"In library."

Bunny blinked like someone had just slapped him in the face. "Jack. Jack is in the library."

"Come, we go to him," North smiled, walking out of the Globe Room without waiting to check that the others were following. Bunny was quick to hop after him, still rather sceptical and a little worried about the books. Tooth shared a look with her fairies before nudging Sandy awake and joining them.

 

* * *

 

North's library was, in a word, huge. Countless shelves as high as the ceiling lined the room holding such a vast quantity of texts ranging from magic to classical literature that no mortal man would ever be able to read them all in one lifetime even if reading was all he ever did.

It took a little while but they eventually found Jack curled up in an armchair deep within the fiction section, his face obscured by the worn cover of the book he was reading. His staff was propped gently against the chair beside him.

"Jack!" North greeted heartily.

The winter spirit jumped, obviously not having noticed their approach. "Did I miss the meeting?" he asked knowingly, resting the book on his knees.

Bunny was about to respond in the affirmative but suddenly found himself lost for words upon seeing Jack's face.

"Are you wearing glasses?" Tooth asked, looking mildly surprised.

Jack frowned momentarily before his eyes widened in understanding. "Oh, right," he said, pulling off the black-framed specs. "I forgot I hadn't told you. Is this really the first time I've read around you guys?"

"I didn't know you were far-sighted."

"Took me a little while to figure it out, too," Jack shrugged. "But then again, I didn't get to read very often unless I managed to sneak into a library. Who knew North had such a great collection?!"

Sandy caught his attention, a few sand pictures flickering into existence.

"Where did I get them?" he interpreted the question. "Ummm…"

"You stole them, didn't you?" Bunny said flatly.

"I did not steal them," Jack huffed. "I bought them with the coins I'd been saving up. And I didn't steal _those_ , either. I found them on the ground."

"So, what, you just waltzed up into a store and bought a pair of glasses?"

"Well obviously it wasn't that simple," Jack rolled his eyes. "But I left the money where the cashier would find it."

"They look good on you," Tooth smiled.

"Yes, makes you look sophisticated," North added.

"He looks ridiculous," Bunny countered.

"I'm a little surprised the insults aren't being dished out yet," Jack said honestly.

"Well, would be bit hypocritical for Bunny to do such a thing," North smirked. Bunny immediately turned to glare at him with a 'don't you dare' expression.

"Oh?" Jack raised a brow, a similar smile tugging at his own lips. "I didn't take you for someone who needed glasses, Cottontail."

"That was yonks ago," Bunny growled.

North leaned in conspiratorially and winked, "They were green tinted. Matched his robe."

"North!"

"Please tell me you have a picture!" Jack cried, biting his lip as he leapt to his feet.

Sandy nodded enthusiastically, gesturing for Jack to follow him, and before Bunny could even register what had happened they were gone.

"Oi! Get back here!" he called, racing after them. "Sandy, don't you dare!"

"We'd better make sure they don't destroy the library," Tooth said, stifling a giggle. North agreed. Nothing was safe when Sandy and Jack teamed up and some of the books were irreplaceable.

"Besides, has been while since we've looked at old pictures," North replied, following her in the direction the boys had gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe we've reached 50 chapters. When I started this I had intended to reach 100, so I guess that means we're halfway there!


	51. Lesson Learned (Revenge to a Reindeer)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So 13BlueBananas wanted poor old Rudolph to get his revenge. As you can see I happily obliged ;)

Rudolph didn't consider himself a particularly malicious reindeer, nor could he say that he took pleasure in the suffering of others. In fact, all he really wanted to do was his job. And he would do it properly, no matter the circumstances. And so he relented to wearing the ridiculous and highly humiliating light on his nose for North and the children. But putting the damn thing on when he wasn't even wearing his harness and then proceeding to _forget to take it off_ _for hours afterwards,_ leaving him to the snickering of his fellow reindeer purely to amuse a winter spirit was where he drew the line.

Something had to be done. And he would be the one to do it.

"Yah!" North shouted, flicking the reindeers' reins.

The deer stomped the ground, snorting agitatedly, but didn't move.

"Yah!" the Cossack tried again, but with the same results. "Strange," he murmured, slipping out of the sleigh and moving towards the beasts. Everything appeared to be fine, so why wouldn't they budge?

Bunny looked beyond relieved at the development, but the other Guardians seated beside him were of the same sentiment as their unofficial leader.

North gently stroked the neck of the left lead deer, which happily butted its head against him. "There does not seem to be problem," he said. "Shall we try again, my friends?"

Indeed, the deer all looked as eager to go as he did, so when North tried to get them to move the third time without success, he was thoroughly confused.

Jack frowned, jumping down from the sleigh with the intention of checking for anything North might have missed. But the very moment his feet touched down on the runway the deer charged off towards the tunnel, enticing alarmed cries from the sleigh's remaining occupants. Jack blinked, watching them go, before calling on the wind to help him catch up.

"What was that about?" he asked, landing nimbly on the sleigh's wing.

"I have no id–" North was cut off as the deer suddenly pulled to the left, ignoring his tugs on the reins and coming back in to land on the runway inside the Workshop.

"Um… okay," Jack raised a brow. Sandy, Tooth and North looked likewise confused. Bunny looked like he wanted to throw up.

The deer fidgeted irately, the only one not moving being the left lead deer, who stood taught and unmoving. Jack kept his eyes on that deer as he gently stepped off the wing and onto the ground. Like before, as soon as his weight was removed from the sleigh the deer were off again.

"I'm sensing a theme here," he muttered, stroking his chin.

 

* * *

 

One particular yeti had come to hate his job in the reindeer stalls. In the past he had never had an issue with the powerful animals. He would take in some hay, make sure they had enough food and water, clean out their stalls, brush their fur, clean their hooves – the works! – and never had they shown any hostility unless he happened to tug just that little bit too hard on a knot.

And in reality this remained the standard for the majority. But there was one, one deer, who seemed to have it in for him. The once laid-back Rudolph eyed him with a glint in his eyes that the yeti really didn't like as he stepped forward with the bag of brushes. If he was honest with himself, he would admit that he was a little scared to go in there. But he had a job to do, and he was going to do it.

Slowly and carefully, the yeti lifted the latch to the stall and eased the door open. Rudolph didn't move. Slowly and carefully, he hung the bag on a hook on the wall. Rudolph didn't move. Slowly and carefully, he pulled out the first brush. Rudolph didn't move. Slowly and carefully, he pressed the bristles of the brush against the deer's fur. Rudolph moved.

Upon later reflection, the yeti wouldn't be able to say what, exactly, had happened in that second. For one moment he was about to brush the deer's fur and the next he was lying flat on his back in the middle of the barn walkway with a bag of brushes stuck on his head.

Maybe this was a sign he should retire, he wondered, not willing to move even the slightest inch as he felt more than saw the large deer step over his prone form and head out of the barn.

 

* * *

 

Oblivious to the events occurring just a few floors below, Jack happily sat in an armchair and munched on a gingerbread cookie as North regaled them all with a tale of his bandit days. The winter spirit, while a little surprised that the generous man before him had once been a thief, couldn't say he was overly shocked. The image suited him pretty well, after all.

They all flinched as the door suddenly burst open, turning their gazes to the intruder. All thoughts fled as said intruder revealed itself to be a rather angry looking reindeer.

"Why is there a deer in here?" Tooth whispered.

The reindeer's head snapped towards them, eyes locking onto a rather startled Jack Frost. No one dared move as it stormed over, never once breaking eye contact.

"Um… hi?" Jack smiled weakly as the deer loomed over him.

Before the other Guardians could so much as blink, the deer grabbed the boy by the hoodie and bodily hauled him out of the room.

Several moments of silence passed before Bunny asked, "What just happened?"

 

* * *

 

Jack glared at the ground like it was the reason he was in this situation as he tried to ignore the cheerful yet mocking flashing Christmas lights tied around him and a brown yeti. They were hanging from a beam in the barn, a good few feet between them and the ground, swinging gently in the slight breeze.

"I blame you for this," he told his fellow prisoner darkly.

"Wardagh?!"


	52. In Which Jack Feels Superior

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To earthstar, I hope you enjoy your request :3

Jack smiled happily to himself as he dumped the backpack full of stuff on the table in North's Globe Room. The others had already arrived for their scheduled meeting and were watching him curiously.

"What's in the bag, Sweet Tooth?" Tooth asked, fluttering over from where she'd been instructing her fairies. Baby Tooth quickly zipped over and took her place on Jack's shoulder before any of her sisters could steal her spot.

"Well, it has recently come to my attention that I wasn't as technologically savvy as I'd thought and, considering you guys haven't spent as much time around kids and the modern world as I have, I figured you would be worse than I was."

Bunny glared and Jack was quick to cut him off before an argument could start.

"So, I asked Jamie if I could borrow some of his stuff to educate you."

Sandy, who appeared the most enthused about the idea, happily drifted over. Jack unzipped the backpack and pulled out the very much despised iPad.

"As long as we don't break anything," he said, handing the device to Sandy, "we're welcome to use it." He watched for a moment as the little man tried and failed to figure out how to turn it on before reaching over and pushing the button on the top, squashing the voice in the back of his mind that said he had been just as ignorant not a week ago with the ever-so-pleasant feeling of superiority. It was a rare experience for him, particularly when he was around the Guardians. And he had every intention of savouring it.

Sandy smiled his thanks and Jack returned his attention to the bag, pulling out the next item; a hand-held video game console, giving it to Tooth. She had a little more luck in figuring out where the on button was than Sandy but she looked confused while she was doing it.

"Catch, Cottontail," Jack called, gently tossing an mp3 player over to the anthropomorphic rabbit, confident he would catch it long before it hit the ground. Bunny easily snatched it out of the air, eyeing it both in curiosity and suspicion.

"Aaaand North can have the frea- phone," he hastily corrected, passing Jamie's mobile to the large man. It had taken a lot of convincing to get the kid to part with it and all of his other electronics but it was easy enough when he used a snow day as a bribe. Jamie would just have to find another way to amuse himself for the day.

A tug on his hoodie grabbed his attention and Jack looked down to see the Sandman looking confused and gesturing to the iPad he was still holding.

"Oh," Jack said, kneeling down a bit. "It's called a 'touch screen', so you just tap what you want with your finger like this," he demonstrated, opening the internet app, frowning when an error message popped up. "Huh, guess we're too far north to get any reception. Just press the button with a square on it to go back."

Sandy nodded, doing as he was told.

"Argh!" the frustrated cry of the Tooth Fairy had Jack wandering over to her, peering over her shoulder so he could get a look at the screen.

She'd managed to open the racing game (Maria or something, he couldn't really remember), but was failing spectacularly. She hadn't even figured out how to make the cart go.

"How is this enjoyable?" she asked almost manically as the other carts passed her for the second time.

"Hold down this button to make the cart go," Jack instructed, gesturing.

Tooth did so, only for her cart to fly off faster than she'd anticipated and crash into a wall. Jack tried to hold back a laugh.

"You have to use the control pad to change direction."

Sandy was back, looking a little scared, if Jack was honest. He made a sand image of a glass breaking, pointing to the device.

"You think it's broken?" Jack asked, ignoring the way his voice rose. If anything got broken there would be hell to pay.

Sandy nodded, demonstrating by trying to touch one of the apps only for nothing to happen. Frowning, Jack pressed it himself. The camera app opened instantly. Sandy tried pressing something else, with the same nonexistent results.

"Huh," Jack said. "Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you're made of sand."

Tooth had a rather manic expression on her face as she aggressively tried to get the cart go where she wanted it to and Jack decided he should probably fix this now before he had the chance to regret it.

"Why don't you two swap?" he suggested, prying the game from Tooth's clenched hands and handing it to Sandy before giving her the iPad.

"GAH!"

They all jumped at the sudden cry, turning to face a rather startled looking Bunny, who was holding the iPod at arm's length, earphones dangling to the ground.

"Bunny?" Jack asked tentatively. "Are you okay?"

Bunny's eyes met his and he cleared his throat awkwardly. "Fine, mate," he said with false calm. "Just wasn't expectin' it to be so bloody loud."

Jack hummed in sympathy. "Got me the first time, too," he nodded, not bothering to mention that the 'first time' had been the only time and that he now refused to put the little buds anywhere near his ears. He also decided it would probably be best not to mention how he'd forgotten the kangaroo's ears were far more sensitive than his.

"I think I'll stick to eggs, mate," Bunny told him, holding the little music player out to him.

Before Jack had the chance to grab it he was distracted by a string of curses in what sounded like Russian. North was scowling at the phone, jabbing his finger at it, which only brought forth more profanity.

"Is so hard to only press what you want!" the Cossack ground out. Jack knew the feeling. And North had bigger hands than him.

"I think maybe we should just stick to what we know," Tooth suggested kindly, but the look in her eyes hinted to the storm brewing inside. Apparently she hadn't been having much luck with the iPad either.

In fact, Sandy looked to be the only one enjoying himself, having successfully managed to get the cart to move (although he was a rather reckless driver and crashed more often than not).

At Bunny's further prodding, Jack conceded to taking the iPod, looking down at it in thought. If it managed to scare both him _and_ Bunny, who was supposed to be 'master of tai chi' and whatever else he'd spouted back in Jamie's room that day, maybe there was a further use he could put it to. A much better use. But it would require a stop at Jamie's place.

 

* * *

 

Jamie had insisted on coming when Jack had told him the plan. At first Jack had been hesitant to allow it but he quickly realised he had no idea what he was doing and would require the teenager's technological abilities to pull it off.

And that was how they'd both ended up hiding on top of one of the creepy bird cages, out of sight, in Pitch's lair, watching without a trace of fear as the Boogieman clapped his hands over his ears and shouted to no one, trying to figure out where the infuriating and rather unexpected loud music was coming from.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really like Pitch, but you'd never know it ^^;


	53. At War Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this one was getting really long so I decided to split it up. Also I'm running low on ideas for it so if you've got any, please let me know!
> 
> I hope it's up to standard, SanctuaryInMusic.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own RotG or Slenderman.

How had it come to this, Jack wondered as he dove behind a tree for cover, barely managing to dodge the paint bomb thrown in his direction. A simple visit to the warren had somehow blown into a game of cat and mouse between him and Bunny (although he wasn't entirely sure who was who), and all because he'd accidentally knocked the Pooka into the dye river. And it _had_ been an accident. It _had_. That didn't mean he hadn't enjoyed it, though.

Looking up, Jack quickly judged the distance between himself and the tree's lowest branch before jumping and hauling himself up without the wind's aid. If he was going to stand a chance against the hyper-speed, overgrown rabbit and his enhanced senses, he needed to be clever; and getting behind his assailant without being noticed was definitely the way to go.

Jack could see Bunny stalking towards the tree he was in through a gap in the leaves. He had one boomerang in hand, the other paw hovering over his egg bombs, ready to let one fly at the shortest notice. Jack nimbly darted to another branch, making almost no noise at all.

"Alright, Frostbite, I know you're there," Bunny said with a conversational tone that didn't match his (dye-splattered) expression. "Why not make things easy and just come out?"

 _Yeah, not likely_ , Jack silently snorted, clearing the distance between his branch and one on the next tree with ease. He halted as soon as he was balanced, looking back at the Easter Bunny to ensure he hadn't been found out. But Bunny was still focused on the other tree. Smirking to himself, he continued to move around the clearing.

"We can do this the easy way or the hard way," the rabbit continued, oblivious that Jack was now almost directly behind him.

 _Or, we could do it my way_ , Jack gave a wry smile, a snowball forming in his hand. In one fluid movement, he pulled back his arm and threw the icy projectile with alarming accuracy, where it smacked dead into the back of Bunny's head. Jack fought to keep himself from laughing as Bunny froze (pun not intended… or was it?), ears swivelling around in Jack's general direction.

Raising one paw, he wiped the lingering snowflakes from his fur. "Oh, it is on." And he promptly disappeared down a tunnel.

Jack blinked at the sudden development, twisting his head in all directions to try and catch a glimpse of Bunny, but as the minutes ticked by and he saw neither hide nor hair of the Pooka, he was forced to conclude that the rabbit was gone.

Normally, one would be relieved that their assailant had vanished. This was not the case for Jack. Bunny, he knew, would never give up without a fight. And he never backed down from a challenge. Jack would have to be on high alert for quite a while.

 

* * *

 

Jack could tell the exact moment their game turned from one of cat and mouse to a full-scale war. It was precisely the exact moment when he jumped down from a tree by his lake and ended up falling into a hole. And then had a trip wire go off, releasing a bucket of dye that had been concealed in the branches to fall on his head.

"You want to play, Cottontail?" Jack asked, wiping the ink from his face. "We can play. But I don't think you're going to like the game."

Too bad Bunny wasn't there to see the slightly evil expression slowly forming on his face, he thought. Maybe he would quit while he was ahead. As it was he would just have to endure or outsmart every plot Jack could come up with. And he had a lot.

 

* * *

 

It had been a quiet week. Too quiet, if you asked E. Aster Bunnymund. Especially after the stunt he'd pulled on Jack. And if there was one thing he knew about Jack it was that he always had to have the last laugh. So it was safe to say Bunny was on high alert pretty much 24/7. He'd almost taken to sleeping with his eyes open. Almost.

So when he caught sign of some kind of revenge in his Warren he was ready.

"You'll have to do better than that, Frostbite," he said to himself as he stepped around a patch of branches and leaves – a poorly concealed hole – only to gasp in shock as the ground suddenly disappeared and he found himself swinging in a net attached to the branch of a tree.

A clicking sound that was alarmingly reminiscent of a camera caught Bunny's attention and he looked down to see Jack staring up at him smugly. And probably just to add insult to injury, the winter spirit moved to stand on the patch he'd avoided. Clearly not a hole, then.

"Fancy meeting you here," Jack called, letting the camera in his hands fall against his chest.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. This isn't over, Frost."

"I hope not. I've still got a bunch of ideas I'd like to use," with a farewell wave he turned on his heel and walked off.

Bunny watched him go for a moment. "Oi! How am I gonna get down from 'ere?!"

The only response he got was the winter spirit's fading laughter.

* * *

_Riiing. Ring._

Jack paused, halfway to upright on the tree branch he'd been sleeping on. He remained that way in silence for a moment or too but when the strange ringing sound didn't come back he shrugged it off and let himself fall down to the ground.

_Riiiiiiiiing. Riing._

He stilled again, and again there was no sound when he was listening for it. Experimentally he shifted slightly.

_Ring._

Jack's eyes narrowed in suspicion. He glanced over himself, failing to locate the source while the ringing continued with each movement he made.

"Where is that coming from?" he asked himself, looking back over his shoulder in an attempt to see his back.

_Riiiiiing._

Jack pulled his arm back as far as he could, eventually managing to feel something cold and round attached to his hood. With a firm tug he pulled it free, revealing the object to be a little bell. Blue eyes narrowed as a fist curled around the ringing golden ball.

 

* * *

 

"Jack what are you doing?" North asked with a small frown as he watched the winter spirit trying to subtly pass unidentified objects to the elves.

"Nothing," Jack smiled innocently, his hands behind his back.

North wasn't buying that for a second. "Should I be worried?"

"No," and this time it was the truth.

North decided to leave him to it. As long as whatever the boy was planning had nothing to do with him, he wouldn't get involved.

 

...

North jumped nearly a foot in the air when the first of many air horns went off, echoing loudly off the walls of the Workshop. Tooth, who had been hovering in place a few feet away actually faltered in her flight, touching down on the ground in shock. Sandy, who had been dozing, was startled into wakefulness.

The three of them looked towards the window as snickering laughter reached their ears, watching as Jack Frost flew in to join them.

Three more air horns went off in quick succession and their attention was once more drawn towards the door, not that any of them could see what was going on deeper in the Workshop through the thick oak.

"FROSTBITE!" a familiar voice growled, quickly followed by the door slamming open and bouncing off the wall. Bunny was clearly not happy as he bounded towards them, looming over Jack threateningly.

"Hey, Bunny," Jack smiled at him, not intimidated in the slightest. "About time you showed up."

"That was dirty."

"What? I don't remember writing down any rules. Can't handle a few elves, Cottontail?"

"A few? _A few?_ All the bloomin' elves in this joint have bloody air horns! Do you even realise how much louder those things are when you have sensitive ears?!"

"That's what I was counting on."

"Um, what's going on?" Tooth interjected, gaining their attention.

"We're at war," Jack told her with a face completely void of expression.

"…Why?"

"I'll tell you why," Bunny crossed his arms. "It's because this little show pony decided to push me into the bloody dye river!"

"It was an _accident_ ," Jack rolled his eyes.

"Sure it was, mate."

"Will you two leave your bickering until later?" North cut across, looking slightly annoyed. "We have meeting, yes?"

Bunny and Jack exchanged a glare but consented. They had all the time in the world, after all.

 

* * *

 

When Jack woke up in a sack, he knew immediately that Bunny had gotten him back for the elf thing. There was still one question on his mind, though. Why a sack? And a very familiar sack at that. The top of the bag was sealed tight and no matter what he did he couldn't managed to get it open. Which really only left him with two options: wait until someone came and released him, or break out the old fashioned way. Seeing as it was unlikely anyone would help him, it was easy enough to come to a decision.

It took only a moment for him to create a sharp enough icicle, and mere seconds to use it to create a tear in the sack big enough for him to haul himself out. But now he was faced with a new problem.

"Damn you, rabbit," Jack mumbled, looking down at the expanse of water below him. It didn't look very deep – probably only about his height – but it was still water, and even if he had managed to push that particular fear aside it didn't mean he wanted to deliberately submerse himself in it.

There was, thankfully, a little sandbank, that he could probably reach if he angled himself perfectly, with his staff sticking up in the centre like a flagpole. Actually, now that he thought about it, he appeared to be in the middle of nowhere; how on earth was he being suspended like he was?

Curiosity overrunning annoyance (temporarily) Jack tilted his gaze upwards. And then the annoyance was back again. A strange hovering toy shaped like a bird had the end of the sack clasped firmly in its talons, a distinct air of magic surrounding it.

"You brought North into this? And using my fears, really?" Jack asked Bunny, even though the Pooka was nowhere in sight. "Hmm… well, if that's how you want to play…" He gracefully threw himself out of the bag, easily managing to land with both feet dry and on the sandbank, before grabbing his staff and flying off, trying to figure out where he was so he knew which direction to go in.

 

* * *

 

Something was off in the Warren. He knew it from the second he jumped out of his tunnel. It was like when Sophie had suddenly appeared there all over again, except this time he was certain it wouldn't be such a good thing. Especially since North's bird thing had flown back to the Pole – a sign Jack had freed himself from the latest 'attack'.

It had been a low blow, he knew, but the blighter could use a knock down or two. Except now Bunny knew he would be paying for it. Big time. He liked to think it had been worth it, though, especially once they'd gotten the photos that the bird had taken.

But then there was the second problem he was now facing. It was dark, almost completely pitch black (not the Boogieman), as though it was the middle of the night. His superior senses meant he could still navigate the place with ease but it was disconcerting none the less. It was never dark in the Warren.

A note pinned to a tree caught his attention and he wandered over, snatching it. There was just enough light filtering through what was probably a thick layer of cloud cover to make out what was on it. It was a crudely drawn (or rather, scribbled) picture of a group of trees and what appeared to be a stick figure animal – a dog, maybe.

Bunny was pretty sure this was Jack's doing, but as to what purpose it served he had yet to figure out. How was darkness and a drawing tacked to a tree a prank?

Figuring Jack was probably around somewhere (he did seem to like witnessing his work), Bunny decided to keep heading through the Warren in search of him. A quick sniff of the air confirmed his suspicions – Jack was here somewhere – but also brought on wariness. Jack wasn't the only visitor in the Warren. There were two more, if he correctly identified.

"Alright, Frostbite," he said, tucking the drawing into a pouch on his sash. "I'll humour you." And he stepped off into the darkness.

 

...

He managed to walk for maybe five minutes before the stomping began. He easily picked up the sound with his sensitive hearing, but what unnerved him was the fact that he couldn't tell which direction it was coming from. He silently told himself it was just Jack and his two unidentified companions, but the sound still set his fur on edge.

The second page he found was stuck on one of his sentinel eggs, which was surprisingly still, as if it were nothing more than a statue. Pushing the matter to the back of his mind, Bunny squinted his eyes at the piece of paper, trying to make out what was scrawled on it.

The words 'can't run' and a few scribbles glared back at him. Bunny rolled his eyes and stuffed the page in with the other one. While he'd been distracted, he hadn't noticed the thin layer of fog setting in and he frowned at it in confusion. Since when was there ever fog in his Warren? Jack had really pulled out all the stops with this one.

It wasn't until he found the third page – one that had 'don't look or it takes you' written on it – that the droning started. That coupled with the stomping was making it harder to hear for any other, more sinister sounds, such as someone sneaking up on him. It was also doing wonders to frazzle his nerves; not that he'd ever admit it. Not to mention it looked as though the fog had gotten thicker.

Running a paw down his face, Bunny sighed, turning to the right to continue in that direction. All thoughts fled from his mind, however, as he caught sight of a tall, bulky silhouette standing in the shadows. It was too built and large to have been Jack – one of his plus two then.

"Oi!" he called out to it. "Who the bloody hell gave ya permission to come in 'ere?!" Jack had, obviously, but it felt good to yell out his frustration.

The almost inaudible snapping of a twig had him spinning around, but there was nothing behind him except the trees and another statuesque sentinel egg. Frowning, he returned his attention to the first figure he'd spotted, only to find it was gone. No matter where he looked in the darkness around him, there was no sign that anyone had been there at all. Only the stomping and the low droning in the background.

Shaking off the chill that ran down his spine, Bunny continued on in his quest to find the ones responsible, still not entirely sure what Jack hoped to gain from this. He stopped, though, when a loud piano-slamming noise boomed louder than the background sounds and warm breath trickled on the back of his neck.

Before he could even fully comprehend what he was reacting to, Bunny jumped forward and spun around, boomerangs in hand and at the ready.

The huge, almost bipedal wolf was taller than him, even hunched over as it was. Its lips were drawn back into a snarl and saliva dripped from its frighteningly large fangs as it growled at him, a hunger in its eyes that Bunny _really_ didn't like. His heart was practically pounding in his chest against his will and North's words echoed in his head.

_"Why are rabbits always so nervous?"_

The answer was staring him right in the face. Because there were predators.

Taking on a greyhound when surrounded by his fellow Guardians was one thing. But facing a beast like this that looked as though it would like nothing more than to swallow him whole was another. Making a quick decision that he would later deny with every fibre of his being, Bunny bolted like a bat out of hell.

The further away he got, the more the piano music faded until it was gone entirely, leaving him alone with the stomping (which had increased in pace), the droning and the ever-thicker fog. Figuring he was far enough away from the wolf-thing by now, Bunny leant against a tree, panting heavily.

"Bloody hell," he breathed. "You'd better hope I don't catch ya, Frostbite." Letting a predator into his home was definitely where he drew the line.

He looked around the area he'd stopped in, trying to recognise it as part of his Warren. His eyes stopped their roving when they landed on another piece of paper stuck to a tree. The drawings had proven to be of no help whatsoever, apparently only serving to increase the amount of weirdness that was going on.

"Nice try, mate," he smirked, deciding against grabbing this one, which had 'help me' written on it.

A howl pierced the air, closer than he would have liked, making Bunny flinch. Jack may have been up to harmless fun, but that wolf certainly wasn't. Unless it was all just an act. Which was likely. He sniffed the air again, trying to pinpoint the winter spirit. It was easy enough to locate the kid's unique scent, now all he had to do was follow it.

Leaving the fourth page untouched, he bounded on, letting his nose tell him which way to go. He kept his ears and eyes open for any sign of the wolf but it was too dark to see anything and the consistent background noise managed to block out almost everything else.

He smelt it before he saw it. Just a flicker in the shadows, but when he looked he could have sworn it was in the shape of the wolf. Not wanting to stick around and find out he quickened his pace. As soon as he caught Jack the nightmare would be over. He would make the kid fix whatever he'd done to make it so dark and get rid of the damned wolf that was now hunting him.

Another page turned up on his left, a drawing of a tree, the wolf, and the word 'follows' scrawled down the side but he didn't hang around long enough to give it more than a passing glance.

Bunny skidded to a halt as the wolf suddenly appeared a mere few metres in front of him. Still trying to stop his momentum he made to go the other way but then the wolf was suddenly right behind him, glaring down at him with dark eyes. The Pooka backpedalled frantically until his back hit a tree and he could go no further. His paw brushed against something that wasn't bark and he glanced down only for a second but when he looked up again the wolf was gone.

He remained frozen in place for almost a minute afterwards, senses on high alert, but the wolf didn't come back. Allowing himself a moment's reprieve, Bunny stepped away from the tree, pulling off the page he had accidentally found. It was another drawing of the wolf, still a stick figure but with more detail than the last ones. 'No' was written over and over and over again along the sides of the page.

So, collecting the pages made the wolf go away? But how many were there? If he managed to get them all would it leave him alone for good? His thoughts suddenly fled to the pages he'd left pinned to their trees however far away they were now. He would have to go back for them.

He didn't run this time. The last thing he wanted to do was make a lot of noise and tire himself out when he was being stalked. The feeling of invisible eyes watching him was bad enough as it was. Bunny had no idea where he'd been when he'd found the 'help me' page, but he hoped he was heading in the right direction.

He felt a surge of hope course through him when he came across the 'follows' page he'd run past earlier. He was heading in the right direction, at least. However, the second he tore it off the tree and added it to the other ones a loud wind started howling, blocking out all chances he had of tracking anything by scent or sound and the fog was so thick now he could barely see a few steps in front of him.

"Bloody hell," he cursed, picking a direction and continuing on. Frost was going to pay for this, big time.

He manoeuvred his way through winding paths and thick clumps of trees with neither hide nor hair of the wolf or Jack to be seen and he almost let himself relax a little. All thoughts of things going well ran out the window, however, when he stepped out from behind a tree to find himself standing mere inches away from the menacing jaws of the very creature he'd been trying to avoid, the piano music louder than ever. Before he could even think of running teeth flashed and a sharp pain radiated across the back of his head and he knew no more.

...

Bunny awoke to a killer headache. He was lying on his back in the Warren, the usual cheery warm sunlight pouring down on him. There wasn't a trace of fog or eerie background noise or wind to be seen or heard and he almost let himself think the whole ordeal had been a bad dream. Except for the piece of paper placed neatly on his chest.

As he sat up, Bunny lifted the sheet, getting a good look at it. It was similar to the others he'd come across, 'always watches, no eyes' scribbled on it, but it was the 'PTO' written neatly on the bottom that caught his attention. Doing as instructed, he flipped the page over.

"'Hey, Kangaroo,'" he read aloud. "'That was a rather poor performance; I'd expected you to at least reach seven pages before Hans caught up to you.' Hans? The wolf's name was Hans? 'You don't have to worry about becoming a werewolf… err, wererabbit, though; Hans is a friend of Lleu's and he didn't bite you. The reason you were knocked out was because we whacked you on the back of the head with my staff. Sorry about that.' Yeah right."

Bunny crumpled the note with a sneer. Time for payback.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just for interest's sake, Hans is not an OC (well, not really). Like most of my other OCs, he's based off an actual guy. A guy called Hans who was killed for being a werewolf in the 1500s. I decided to revive him purely for the purpose of this chapter (although I have made reference to a werewolf before - presumably also Hans)


	54. At War Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part two for you to read at your leisure.
> 
> Disclaimer: IDORotG or Jack Frost (1979)

"Bunny!"

Bunny winced at North's harsh tone, watching as the man in question stepped out of a portal and into his Warren.

"He got you, didn't he?" Bunny asked in resignation.

"Well, I would be lying if I said I hadn't been expecting it," North sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"What did he do?"

"He wrapped up all the yetis in Christmas paper and ribbon. Was very funny."

Bunny blinked. How had the little blighter managed that? Surely the yetis would have protested at the very least.

"I promised myself not to get involved in your 'war' so long as I was not targeted."

"I know," Bunny nodded. "That's why you helped me earlier."

"Ya; elves playing with air horns have made us all agitated and ruined more than one toy. But this thing with yetis demands proper payback," the glint in the man's eye was both encouraging and worrying.

"What did you have in mind?" Bunny smirked. Jack had better watch himself if North was truly getting involved.

"Here is what we do…"

 

* * *

 

"C'mon, May, you know you want to," Jack said enticingly.

"No, I really don't. Don't all of you have more important things to be doing than childishly playing tricks on each other?" May frowned, arms crossed.

Jack and Lleu had retired to the lake in Burgess, knowing May would turn up there sooner or later. It had been incredibly easy to recruit the summer spirit – Jack had barely got out the full explanation before he was grinning impishly and holding back insane laughter. They both knew that after their stunt in the Warren Bunny was going to get the both of them back and so they needed to get a retaliating prank ready as soon as possible. May's cooperation would be needed for what they had in mind but she was proving rather difficult to convince.

"Nah," Lleu shrugged. "It's our off-season and it's not Easter yet."

"I would think Bunnymund would be more concerned about Easter preparations than this."

"She has a point," Jack conceded.

"Whose side are you on?" Lleu raised a brow.

"Well, he hasn't called for a truce yet," Jack told their spring counterpart. "If we promise not to hinder preparations for Easter will you help?"

May opened her mouth to respond (probably a 'no' – the fifth so far) but she cut herself off, turning an inspecting gaze on the gently rippling water of the pond.

"What?" Jack frowned, following her gaze. Large bubbles were forming in the centre, popping and disturbing the flatness of the surface. "What is that?"

"Probably a fish," Lleu said.

"Those bubbles are too big to belong to any fish I've known to be in there."

The trio stepped closer to the bank, trying to get a better look. Jack cast a blank glance in the direction of May and Lleu before stepping slowly across the water, ice forming a platform under his feet. Once he reached the place where the bubbles were he strained his eyes to peer through the dark water, but he couldn't make anything out. After a moment's hesitation he poked the end of his staff down below the surface. Nothing; no resistance at all.

"I don't–" Jack cut himself off as he tried and failed to lift the butt of his staff out of the water.

"Everything okay over there, Snow Cone?" Lleu called.

"My staff… it's stuck!" No matter how hard he tugged it refused to budge. "I think it's caught on something!"

Whatever it was that was holding his staff in place suddenly lurched downwards and he fell forward with a cry, slipping from his platform and into the lake. He resurfaced not a moment later, staff in hand, and shot up into the air above the pond.

"Are you okay?" May asked when he touched down beside her.

"Something grabbed me," Jack said, eyes narrowed at the spot as he brushed off the extra ice that had formed on him.

A deep rumble reverberated from the lake and they all froze as they stared, wide eyed.

"What are the chances this is payback?" Lleu whispered.

"I'm thinking about 90%."

There was a loud splash as something broke through the surface, spraying water and mud everywhere. For a moment Jack almost suspected it to be Nessie, but the Loch Ness Monster was not only in Scotland, but she also wouldn't have a hope of fitting into his pond. The monster they found themselves facing – monster was probably the best description – wasn't as big as Nessie and was covered in a thick layer of algae and mud. Twin red glowing eyes watched them unblinking from where they were set in a wedge-shaped head on a long, thick neck. Its body, if it had one at all, was still submerged in the depths. The creature opened its mouth, a black abyss, and moaned long and low.

"What in the name of Mother Nature is that?" May gaped.

"I'm going to go with either North has really outdone himself or Nessie's cousin," Jack replied without taking his eyes off the creature that was making its way through the water towards them.

The monster cried out again, rearing back its head.

And then promptly ate Jack.

"Wait, what?" Lleu sputtered. He and May looked where Jack had been standing then back to the monster still looming over them. The summer spirit really didn't like the look it was giving him.

"Did it just… eat Jack?" May seemed equally baffled.

"I think so."

"…What do we do?"

"Honestly? I don't know. How do you get a lake monster to barf someone up?"

"Pepper?"

"Where are we going to get pepper? And isn't that for sneezing?"

"Either way would work, right?"

"Only if it hasn't already swallowed him!"

Before they could think on the matter further, the monster starting thrashing its head about wildly. It seemed to curl in on itself, shuddering. A loud boom had them covering their ears, just as the creature exploded, splattering everything within a ten metre radius with mud.

"Ewwww," Jack groaned, pulling himself out of the debris. He was so covered in mud that you could barely see him.

"Amen," Lleu added, wiping the gunk from his arms. "How the heck did you manage to blow it up?"

"It's mostly robotic on the inside," Jack explained. "I just froze some components and jammed some gears and the rest followed."

"So definitely the work of North, then."

"Oh I have no doubt Bunny was involved too."

When Jack was back on dry muddy land, the two of them turned to May, wincing at the state of her once white dress and sunhat. The woman in question was completely expressionless. With one hand, she attempted to remove the mud covering her face.

May locked eyes with her 'brothers', opened her mouth and said two words.

"I'm in."

Jack grinned. "Then let's go get our last member."

 

* * *

 

"Oi, Ceres!"

The autumn spirit looked up as her three counterparts landed nimbly before her. "What are you lot doing here?" she asked. Her eyes homed in on Jack. "Oh, MiM, he's not drunk again, is he?!"

"What? No, I'm completely sober," Jack said with a bemused smile. "We came to ask a favour. One which we think you would find mutually beneficial."

Ceres raised a brow. "I'm listening."

"How would you like the opportunity to humiliate and terrify Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny?"

 

* * *

 

It was a real struggle to keep from laughing as Jack and his three co-conspirators hid in the trees of the Warren. It was a better situation than they could have hoped for – North was there, too. And it was easy enough to have the wind blowing in their direction to prevent Bunny from knowing they were there (if he hadn't sensed their presence in the Warren already).

Now all they had to do was sit and wait for an opportune moment. It didn't take long.

As soon as the two holiday icons were close enough to one of the flower beds, May and Ceres set to work. It was hard to tell from May's expression whether she was enjoying herself or not, but the efficiency of her work and the twitch of the corner of her mouth suggested so. Ceres was downright grinning. Albeit evilly.

Jack and Lleu watched in fascination as their magic made the plants around the Warren grow exponentially. With barely a thought, the vegetation mutated at the throngs of their combined magic, twisting and gaining artificial sentience as they loomed over the two Guardians watching wide-eyed.

Bunny was quick to catch on as the vines wrapped around his legs holding him in place froze over, making it near impossible for his own magic to influence the suddenly mutinous plants.

"Damn it, Frost!" he snapped, eyes darting around as he looked for a sign of the winter spirit. "I know you're here!"

"Bunny, what do we do?" North asked, looking a little panicked as a monstrous Venus fly trap-like flower hunched over him.

"Let's see how he likes being eaten," Jack snickered.

May nodded, mentally directing the plant to comply. Which it did. Gladly.

North's cries of distress were muffled by the jaws of the mutant flower.

"Okay, okay," Lleu said around a fist he was using to try and suppress his laughter. "My turn."

Ceres waved in a 'by all means' kind of way.

"Jack! Get your scrawny hide out here!" Bunny was still shouting. "And whoever's with ya; I know ya can't've done this by yourself!"

"Yeah, not likely," Jack whispered, rolling his eyes. "Lleu, if you would."

"Gladly," the summer spirit smirked, holding out a hand in Bunny's general direction. The wind more than happily responded to his beckoning, cycling in an upward loop where it met with colder air from Jack's wind, until a small cloud began to form above the Pooka, growing darker and darker the more time passed. They knew they were on the way to success when the first droplet of water landed on Bunny's fur.

"What the-?" Bunny glanced upwards, eyes widening as he spotted the new addition. "Crikey!"

A small bolt of lightning struck the tips of his ears, barely enough to give more than a jolt. Bunny jumped, pulling down his ears and glaring at the cloud.

"Frostbite!" he growled, still trying and failing to locate Jack as his fur got drenched in the tiny cloud's rain.

"Nicely done, ladies and gentleman," Jack beamed at them.

"Pleasure to be of service, good sir," Lleu bowed.

"Shall we get out of here before they spot us?" May asked, glancing at the scene continuing below.

"Probably for the best," Ceres stood on her branch, stretching. "Though I _suppose_ we should help them a little first." From the sounds of it she really didn't want to.

"Yeah, you're probably right," Jack agreed.

"Very well," she huffed, waving her hand at the clearing. The plants instantly stopped their rampage, becoming the regular foliage they had once been. North grumbled as the fly trap-like flower finally released him. May likewise extracted her magic from the plants.

Jack held up his staff, ready to blow the miniature thunderstorm away but paused when Lleu grabbed the hooked end.

"Can't we just leave it for a while?" he asked, doing his best rendition of puppy-dog eyes. "It won't hurt him, really, and it'll diffuse on its own after a while."

Jack couldn't argue with that, shrugging as he and the others took off out of the Warren before they were spotted.

"The rabbit's got some gardening to do," Ceres smirked.

"Or an all-you-can-eat buffet," Lleu laughed.

 

* * *

 

"Sandy, glad you could make it, mate," Bunny greeted as the small golden man drifted down into his Warren.

After a brief discussion, he and North had come up with a plan, but they knew they would need back-up, especially if he was right in his assumption that Jack had involved the other seasonals. Tooth would likely have a fit if she found out the extent the pranks were getting to (it really was starting to look more like an actual war) so they'd settled for just Sandy. The guy was definitely an instigator and more than once Bunny had found himself comparing him to Jack. Someone who could think on the same level as the winter spirit would definitely be a bonus.

Sandy created a question mark above his head, not having understood why he'd been sent for.

"We need your help, my friend," North told him.

Sandy waved his hand, signalling for him to continue.

"We want you to help us win war against Jack and other seasonals."

Sandy's eyes widened, not having known that others were being drawn into the battle. He silently asked what they wanted him to do. Although the part of his mind that could think clearly whispered to him the dangers of acting against someone like Jack Frost, the other, more mischievous side of him didn't really care.

Bunny smirked. This was going to be good.

 

* * *

 

"Hey, Sandy," Jack waved at the Sandman as he floated overhead on his dream sand.

He and the other seasonals had agreed that it would be dangerous to split up and make themselves easier targets, for a little while, at least, and had made an impromptu sleep-out at Jack's lake. It was dark out, but still too early to sleep.

Sandy waved cheerily back, letting himself come down to meet them.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Lleu whispered. "What if he's on their side?"

"We'll just have to be careful," May replied in an equally hushed tone.

"How's dream delivery going?" Jack asked.

Sandy held up both thumbs, grinning. He then gestured to the lot of them, a question mark appearing above him.

"Oh, we decided it would be nice to hang out for the night. It's not very often that the temperature is suitable for all of us at once, you know?" Jack explained. The ease in which he believably stretched the truth was both admirable and scary.

Sandy nodded in understanding. He pointed up at the sky as he created an image of a clock and a sleeping child.

"You've got to get back to work?" Jack correctly identified. "Okay, we'll see you around, Sandman."

Sandy waved goodbye and headed off, his rather evil smile hidden from them. He let them lull into a false sense of security before subtly sending a thin trail of dream sand their way. They were asleep before they'd even realised what had happened.

 

* * *

 

Jack groaned as he drowsily blinked awake. It took him a minute to take in his surroundings and the three other spirits dozing nearby before it finally clicked that he hadn't been woken for his shift of night-watch.

"Hey, you guys, wake up!" he called, nudging Ceres with his staff.

"Ngh… five more minutes," she groaned, rolling away from him.

"Why didn't you wake me for my shift?" he asked, nudging her again.

"Huh? Wha?" she opened her eyes somewhat dazedly before she realised the same thing he had only moments before, shooting upright. "What happened?"

"We fell asleep," May yawned, stretching her arms above her head.

"Sandy," Lleu added. "I bet you it was his doing."

"Oh this isn't good," Jack's voice drew all their attention. He was staring down at a small square of paper.

"What's that?" May asked, dread in her tone.

"I found it in my hoodie pocket… I think you guys might want to see this."

"Well, show us then!" Ceres grumbled.

Wincing, Jack did as he was told. Silence reigned for several moments.

"I'll kill them," May hissed, breaking the silence.

"How did they even manage to _get_ those costumes?" Lleu asked in horror.

It was a photo. A photo that brought nothing but a very, _very_ bad feeling. How many were in circulation? Had they spread to the mass spirit population?

"Oh, God, I'm never going to live this down," Ceres hung her head in her hands.

The photo showed all four of them asleep under a tree, dressed as characters from the TV special puppet-version of Jack Frost. Jack was, obviously, Jack Frost, complete with the ridiculous elf hat and pointy shoes. Ceres, who was next to him, was dressed in what could only be Elisa's costume (and the very thought made them both want to dig a hole and bury themselves); May was next in Holly's sparkly outfit, leaving Lleu in the blue, glitter covered costume of Snip.

"This… this is not acceptable!" Ceres raged.

"We have to get them back," Lleu said with absolute seriousness.

They settled for making plans, but before they had gotten far, a very angry looking Tooth Fairy descended, opened a portal with one of North's snow globes, and demanded that they walk through it. And no one was willing to argue with an angry Tooth.

 

* * *

 

The portal, surprisingly, opened up into the Warren, where they found a very chastised looking North, Bunny, and Sandy. Tooth shepherded them over to join the others.

"Alright, this has gone on long enough," she glared, hands on her hips. "Bunny, you have Easter to worry about, not childishly trying to get back at Jack for something that he says was an accident."

Bunny muttered under his breath.

" _What was that?_ "

"Nothing."

"That's what I thought," she snapped her gaze to Bunny's accomplices. "The same goes for you two. North, you should be supervising the toy production and Sandy, you should know better."

They both looked appropriately apologetic.

"As for you lot," she flew over to the seasonal spirits. "Don't you two ladies have seasons to take care of? I don't really know you, Lleu, but you should be ashamed of yourself, too. As for you, Jack, well, I can't say I'm all that surprised but this is getting out of hand!"

They blinked at her outburst, not used to being scolded by anyone who wasn't Mother Nature. Jack looked unaffected, as though it was a normal occurrence.

"Bunny, Jack, I want you to hug and make up," she ordered.

"What?!" the two in question cried.

" _Now_."

"Yes, mom," Jack muttered, rolling his eyes as he turned to face Bunny who likewise looked as though he had a few choice words he wanted to say.

"Without the attitude, please," Tooth said, brow raised.

"I'm sorry for knocking you into the dye river," Jack said without actually sounding apologetic. "But it _was_ an accident."

"If you say so," Bunny replied, not believing it. "I'm sorry for getting back at you." Then he added quietly so Tooth wouldn't hear, "Though not as sorry as you."

"Yeah, we'll see about that, Kangaroo," Jack replied just as quietly.

"Now hug," Tooth ordered.

They groaned, rolling their heads to look at her.

"That wasn't a request."

"Fine," Jack and Bunny huffed, coming together for a very short, very awkward, and very unheartfelt embrace.

"Good. Now all of you go do whatever it is you were _supposed_ to be doing," and with one final warning glare Tooth flew off.

"See ya later, Snow Cone," Lleu waved with a sigh and what looked like a poorly repressed smile, taking off with the girls.

North disappeared through a snow globe, Sandy following him.

"Later, 'Roo," Jack saluted, letting the wind carry him off.

As the two turned away from one another they silently snickered, one with 'Kick Me' stuck to his back and the other sporting 'Pet Me'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The photo was not spread but instead kept for blackmail purposes


	55. The Magic of Fun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty sure this is the shortest one yet! So more of a drabble this time. It's also an AU 'what if' scenario (kinda like what I did with 'Black and White'). For Mysterfan17 (FFN) who gave me the prompt :3

"That's it," Jack breathed in realisation. "That's my centre."

Jamie frowned up at him in confusion, having absolutely no idea what he was on about or what it had to do with him being scared. But the way Jack straightened with a smile on his face was reassuring, and so he allowed himself to try and relax. Jack would protect him. There was nothing to be scared of if he and the other Guardians were there.

"So what do you think, Jamie?" Pitch asked. "Do you believe in the Boogiema-"

"Sounds like _somebody_ could use a fun flake," Jack interrupted, a single dainty snowflake twirling around his fingers. He glanced at Jamie, winking before letting a small breeze carry the flake over to the man of shadows.

"What-?" Pitch started to ask but fell silent as the snowflake landed dead on the centre of his nose. Blue sparkles erupted from the point of contact and for one blissful second it looked as though it had worked; a smile starting to tug at the Nightmare King's lips, his eyes lighting up in a way none of them had ever seen.

But just as soon as the change occurred it was gone again, replaced by a pained hiss and an infuriated growl. Pitch tried to wipe the residual magic from his face but it was impossible. The Guardians, Jack and Jamie watched in mild horror and fascination as their assailant looked like he was trying to claw himself apart. With barely a movement, the Boogieman retreated into the shadows with an air of finality. He didn't reappear.

"Um… what just happened?" Jamie was the one to ask, although the others looked just as clueless as him.

"Wasn't that one like the one you used on me in the Warren?" Bunny looked over at Jack.

Jack nodded, a frown on his face. "They're supposed to… Ooooh," he laughed, although it really wasn't something to laugh about.

"What?" Tooth asked.

"See, those snowflakes make people more joyful and make them want to have fun," Jack explained.

"Yes, I'd figured after what happened in Warren with Sophie," North agreed.

Jack tried not to wince at the memory of what had occurred after that. "Well, joy and fun kill fear, and since Pitch harnesses fear – may as well _be_ fear…"

"Ooooh," they chorused.

"So, um, does this mean we won?"


	56. Denial and Deadlines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh there are so many linebreaks in this one. Oh well.
> 
> So this is a conglomeration of one of the ideas from my list and a request from SonYukiGoku'sSister (whom you can thank for the bath scene :P). Sorry it took so long! I've been lazy :I
> 
> Disclaimer: IDORotG

"Achoo!"

Bunny sniffled, turning his attention back to the egg he'd been trying to paint, only to frown in frustration when he realised his sneeze had made him paint a thick blue line across the delicate shell. Again.

"I'm not crook," he told the cluster of eggs watching him (well, as close as they could get without eyes or faces) firmly. He couldn't afford to be sick; not with Easter only a week away. And there was still so much to do!

"You'll just have to be an abstract one," he told the googie in his paw, trying to find a way to incorporate his accident into a new design.

A blast of cold air swept through the Warren and Bunny withheld an irritated sigh. Jack should know better than to come annoy him when he was so busy. And his natural chill would do nothing to help prevent him from getting sick. Not that he had a cold, mind you.

"Hey, Bunny," Jack greeted, casually plonking himself down beside the Pooka.

"What're ya doin' here, Frostbite?" Bunny asked, making no effort to withhold the annoyance colouring his tone or looking up from his painting.

"Just came to see how you were doing," Jack replied. If he noticed Bunny's animosity he ignored it. "Last time we were dealing with Easter you guys got mad at me for _not_ being here and now that I'm here you want me to leave?"

"Well this time we don't have to worry about a hoard of Nightmares."

"True," Jack leaned sideways to look over his shoulder. "That's… not your finest piece of work."

Bunny glared at him. "Don't you think I–ACHOO!"

Jack flinched at the sudden noise, the movement the only thing that saved him from being sprayed in sneeze. Bunny returned to painting like nothing had happened, ignoring the new blue streak that had messed up whatever pattern he'd been working on. Actually, now that he looked closely, Jack noticed there were multiple similar marks that Bunny had obviously tried to fix.

"You feeling okay, Cottontail?"

"'m fine," Bunny grumbled.

Jack exchanged a glance with the cluster of eggs nearby. "Um, no, I don't think you are. Sounds like you're getting a cold."

"Then maybe you should scram before I actually do."

Jack held up his hands in a placating manner. "Okay, okay, keep your tail on," he said, getting to his feet via aid of his staff. "Don't work too hard." And with a gust of wind he was gone.

That had been too easy, Bunny knew. This was far from over.

 

* * *

 

"Hey, Bunny, wake up," Jack called to the Pooka sleeping in a huddle exactly where he'd left him. There were paint stains splattered across his fur, probably from knocking over a container of paint if the scene around him was anything to go by.

Bunny murmured groggily, slowly opening one eye. "Thought I told ya to scram," he mumbled.

"And I did. But now I'm back."

"Why?"

Jack looked mock offended. "What? I'm not allowed to worry about you?"

Bunny narrowed his gaze and attempted to sit upright.

"I think we should get you into bed," Jack decided. "But first it looks like you could use a bath."

Bunny, of course, protested, but it did nothing to stop Jack from grabbing him under the arms and trying to get him upright.

"A little help here?" his voice was strained from the effort.

"I don't need to sleep and I definitely don't need ya to bathe me," Bunny snapped.

"Bunny, you have a fever. I can feel it even through all that fur."

"I've got too much to do. Don't have time to be sick."

"I don't think your cold cares," Jack sighed, using all the strength he could muster in getting the overgrown rabbit upright. But without Bunny's cooperation it wasn't going to happen. "Look, a nap isn't gonna hurt, right? You'll feel better in no time and then you can get back to painting, deal?"

Bunny grunted noncommittally but Jack suddenly found it much easier to drag his weight over to one of the rivers that actually contained fresh water instead of dye.

"Okay, you just wait here," Jack said, settling the Pooka on the grass by the bank.

"Where are ya goin'?" Bunny called after him as the winter spirit started walking away.

"To find a few things. I don't think you're overly inclined to want a cold bath, right?" Jack took his lack of response as a yes and carried on.

Bunny grumbled and muttered under his breath as he watched the winter spirit go. He _wasn't_ sick. The fact that he felt a sneeze oncoming and that he was rather inclined to curl up in the light and go to sleep didn't mean _anything_. Besides, if he didn't keep working he wouldn't be ready for Easter when it finally came. And the last thing any of them needed was a repeat of the Pitch fiasco.

The unending light of the Warren was very enticing, though.

 _Ugh, fine, I'll just rest my eyes 'til Frostbite gets back_ , he told himself, curling up on his side and shutting his eyes.

 

* * *

 

It had taken a little while, but Jack had managed to find a small cave-like room in a well-disguised tunnel. The interior wasn't dissimilar to what homes had looked like when he was human, but instead of a bed, in the corner was what could only be a nest. Yet, despite the fact it was made up of odds and ends, mostly dried grass and a few blankets, it was oddly inviting and he found he almost had to stop himself from going over just to test it out.

"Okay, what do I need?" Jack asked himself. "Probably a pot to boil the water in… Something big enough to use as a bath… Uh… some kind of soap? Can I use regular soap on a rabbit?"

It wasn't hard to find a big pot amidst the hand-carved cupboards, but soap of any kind besides that used for cleaning dishes and something to use as a bath were a little harder. No doubt Bunny usually just cleaned himself like a cat does, but he was too groggy and that would take too long. The bath would probably help bring down the fever a little bit, too.

"To North's then," Jack declared, leaving the pot he'd found on a round wooden table and heading out of the homey cave. It was simply a matter of choosing the right tunnel and he was off to the North Pole.

 

* * *

 

"Hey, Phil!" Jack flagged down his favourite yeti.

Phil grunted a greeting, then pointed down a hallway with a few more nonsensical noises.

"Oh, I'm not here to see North today," Jack replied, accurately translating. He was getting better at reading the yetis' body language and tones. "I was wondering if you could help me find some stuff. I need some soap – pet soap, probably – and something I can use as a bath."

Phil raised a brow at the strange request but shrugged it off. He had learned by now that Jack Frost was a weird one and to just roll with it. He called out to another yeti, who nodded at the command and hurried off, before gesturing for Jack to follow him.

Phil led the boy to a large room in an out of the way section of the Pole. It took less than two seconds for Jack to identify it as some kind of washroom, with piles of laundry in baskets. Several yetis were scattered about the place by large wooden tubs used for hand-cleaning each piece of clothing, from the old yeti hats the elves wore as clothes to North's trousers. The workers looked up and greeted them warmly as they entered.

"Um, you guys do know about washing machines, right?" Jack asked his guide as they navigated around the side to the back of the room.

Phil's reply was lost on the winter spirit.

The large yeti pulled one of the tubs from where it was leaning against the wall and gestured to it, a question in his tone.

"Oh, yeah, that'd be perfect!" Jack grinned. "I promise to bring it back."

Phil nodded, letting Jack grab hold of it. Only to have the wooden structure fall on top of him and trap him underneath like a capsized boat.

"Um, little help here?" Jack's muffled voice reached him.

Phil restrained a chuckle and lifted the tub upright with ease.

"Thanks," Jack jumped to his feet and brushed himself off. "I think I'm going to need some help getting it to the Warren." At Phil's frown and warbled reply he added, "Bunny's got a cold and managed to cover himself in paint. I'm going to send him straight to bed as soon as he's clean."

Phil nodded until a thought occurred to him. A thought which he tried to convey.

"You're worried about Easter preparations?" Jack guessed. Phil nodded. "Don't worry, I won't let Easter be a bust."

 

* * *

 

When the other yeti Phil had sent off earlier returned with a bottle of shampoo (which Jack suspected was yeti-grade) he led the way back to the Warren, Phil carrying the tub like it was weightless. Jack tried not to feel bad about the difference in strength.

"Thanks, Phil," Jack whispered, being mindful of Bunny who had fallen asleep where he'd been left. "I'll let you know when I'm done with it."

Phil nodded, waved, and headed back towards the Pole. Easter wasn't the only holiday that needed a great deal of preparation.

"Now comes the hard part," Jack murmured, going to collect the pot he'd found earlier.

There was a ring of stones encircling a pit not far from Bunny's room, as Jack had started mentally calling it. It was clearly the site for a fire to be started, but Jack hadn't started a fire for over 300 years. He had trouble even getting close to them. But the oldest part of him remembered the way his father had taught him to position the kindling and how to keep a fire going. Bunny needed him to do this. The Pooka would do the same for him, too.

 

* * *

 

Jack cursed silently as he struck two rocks together without success. He'd managed to find some dry sticks and grass to act as kindling but actually starting the fire without a match or flint and steel was proving difficult.

"Why couldn't I have been a fire spirit?" he groaned. "No, wait, why couldn't Bunny just have a stove like everybody else?"

It took no less than 45 tries before he got a spark which promptly died without lighting anything. Jack finally gave up and went back to the Pole for matches.

"Whoa!" Jack jumped back as the grass caught aflame. "Well, at least it's going now." But he would have to keep it going. So while the little cheery blaze busied itself with the sticks he'd arranged, Jack went off to find some bigger pieces.

 

* * *

 

By the time Jack carried the last bucket of hot water over to where he'd left Bunny and the tub, his hands were covered in burns. Getting too close to the fire had had its consequences, and that alongside having to gauge the temperature of the water (to the best of his ability – it would always feel way hotter to him than it actually was) had left his hands a bright red. His body had naturally tried to ice them over and heal them but in the face of higher temperatures it melted before it could do any good. He would just have to grin and bear it until he could go stick his hands in a pile of snow.

"I hope the water's still warm enough," he said to no one as he emptied the last pot-full into the tub. "Now time to wake up the kangaroo."

It was almost a shame to do so; Bunny looked like he was resting peacefully. But the fact remained he was covered in paint and had a fever, so he would just have to suck it up.

"Bunny," he nudged the sleeping rabbit with his foot. "Wake-y wake-y. The bath's ready."

Bunny grumbled something and rolled over. Right into the stream of very cold water. "Crikey!" he gasped, bolting upright.

"You awake now?" Jack smirked.

Bunny glared at him. "Yes."

"Good. Now get in," he pointed at the tub of water.

Bunny's gaze drifted from him to the tub and back again. "Where the heck did you get that?" Jack opened his mouth to answer but was cut off when the Pooka raised his paws. "No, never mind. I don't want to know."

"Enough chit-chat. In." And if he sounded like his mother back when he hadn't wanted a bath as a kid, then so be it. Now he knew how she felt, at least.

"I don't need a bath, mate. I'm not sick."

"Regardless of what you think, you're covered in paint and you have a fever. Plus you're also soaking wet in cold water. Now you're going to get in the tub or I'm going to make you."

Bunny crossed his arms and smiled smugly in a way that clearly read 'I'd like to see you try'. Jack narrowed his eyes.

"Oh, I wonder what Tooth will think when I tell her," he said with exaggerated curiosity, looking up at the sky as if expecting to see her swooping down at any moment. "She'll probably get all her fairies to pick you up and dump you in. And then she'll force feed you heaps of healthy food that's good for your teeth. Not to mention the _medicine_. She probably won't let you out of her sight and you can say buh-bye to painting eggs…"

"You wouldn't."

Jack locked eyes with him and raised a brow. _Oh, wouldn't I?_

"Fine," Bunny snapped, huffing. He grumbled the whole time under his breath but at least he was getting into the bath on his own.

"Was that so bad?" Jack asked as he approached the sullen Pooka. Reaching down, he picked up the bottle of shampoo he'd been given and squirted a generous amount right on top of Bunny's head.

"Hey! Hey! Hey! What do ya think you're doin'?" Bunny pulled away, ears flattening against his skull.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Jack replied, bemused. "That paint's not going to come out on its own."

"I don't need ya to bathe me, mate," Bunny glared.

"Okay, okay," Jack surrendered the bottle. "But if you're not clean by the time I get back no complaints. Got it?" He didn't wait for a reply, turning on his heel to go see what food he could find in Bunny's room, trying to ignore the voice in his mind telling him he was acting like a mother. Stewed leeks were supposed to be good for sick people, right?

 

* * *

 

Jack bit back a curse that Tooth would probably wash his mouth out with soap for even thinking as he wrapped a bandage around his now blistered hand. He'd tried to limit it to a single hand being close to the heat where possible, but he knew he couldn't escape the repercussions completely. He just hoped Bunny wouldn't notice that his hands were whiter than usual. And that he was trying to use them less. But considering the Pooka hadn't noticed they were red before, he figured he was safe for now.

He left the bowl of soup he'd served for the Easter Guardian on the floor next to the nest thing and went to check on his patient. He should have been well and truly clean and dry by now.

He was, it turned out; his fur no longer wet but fluffy to the point it was reminiscent more of an Angora rabbit than a Pooka. Jack had to hold back both a snicker and an insatiable desire to pet him.

"Feeling better?" he asked instead.

Bunny looked up from where he had been trying to flatten his fur, a scowl on his face. Jack didn't laugh. He didn't. Okay, yeah, he totally laughed.

"It's not funny," Bunny said darkly.

"Do you have a brush?" Jack asked around a snicker. He really wished he had a camera with him.

Bunny nodded sharply and pushed past him, heading back in the direction of his room. He paused when he noticed the bowl of steaming soup.

"You cooked?" his tone was indecipherable.

"Yes, as a matter of fact. And I expect you to eat it. Then you're going to bed."

"'S prob'ly poisoned. And I have too much work to do to sleep."

"It's not, I promise. And we had a deal. You are going to rest whether you like it or not. I will personally go get Tooth if I have to." He let a satisfied smirk fall into place on his face when Bunny complied.

Now he had some actual work to do.

 

* * *

 

Bunny's return to consciousness wasn't a jolt of shock, nor was it particularly slow and drowsy. It was more one minute he was asleep and the next he wasn't. He was certainly feeling much better than he had the last however many times he'd woken; that clogged up feeling and the heaviness in his chest both gone.

Jack had been there almost every time with a bowl of some kind of soup (it varied) which was surprisingly good for someone who didn't know how to cook, and a large glass of water. The threat of alerting Tooth had been used repeatedly when he wouldn't comply with Jack's orders, and it had worked every time. The last thing Bunny wanted was to face a worried and overly-mothering Tooth. It was worse than angry Tooth.

Grunting at his stiff body, Bunny got up and stretched, glancing at the calendar on the wall. Only to do a double-take.

How was it suddenly the day before Easter?! He hadn't finished the preparations! It was only supposed to have been a short nap and then he'd get back to it, so how had the week disappeared out of his reach?! There was no way he would be able to make up for lost time. Not with mere hours until deadline.

Nothing short of panicked, Bunny hopped out of his room, ready to go into overdrive to get as much done as possible. All thoughts left him though when he caught sight of the scene outside.

There were eggs everywhere, most painted by the river and vines, but there were some that had that homemade feel to them. They were far from masterpieces, the painted lines shaky and unsure, but the googies seemed pleased with their coats and Bunny was sure the kids would like them, too.

It was an easy enough matter to locate the one responsible. Jack Frost was leaning against the base of a tree, a paint brush and half-painted egg in hand, fast asleep. There was paint on his hoodie, in his hair, his face, and even on his staff which lay in the grass beside him. If Bunny hadn't known better, he would have thought the googies had been painting him instead of the other way around.

Jack shifted in his sleep. His hand twitched and he winced, his pale face contorting in pain. Frowning, Bunny closed the distance between them and looked down at the kid's hands. His _bandaged_ hands.

Now concerned, he gently scooped up one of the appendages, letting the paintbrush roll onto the grass, and started undoing the poor wrapping job, wincing whenever Jack hissed at the movement. The sight underneath made his breath catch. Jack's hand was a mess of half-healed burns and blisters. It was almost like the kid had shoved it straight into a fire–

Oh.

That bath the first day hadn't been hot, but to a winter spirit… and all that soup he'd made… plus all the pressure he'd been putting on them by painting. How had Bunny not noticed it sooner? A winter spirit couldn't do all those things – things that involved _fire_ – and get off scot-free.

"You're an idiot," he scolded fondly.

Enough eggs had been finished that he didn't have to worry, so Bunny carefully scooped up the sleeping spirit and made a tunnel to North's place. And while he wouldn't sick Tooth on him (nobody deserved that), he _would_ be telling North, at least that way he'd have someone making sure those hands healed while Bunny went out and delivered all those eggs the blighter had worked so hard on.

And when Jack was healed completely, Bunny would show his gratitude. But only after he'd given him a piece of his mind first.


	57. Five Times

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full title: Five Times Jack Healed Himself and the One Time He Didn't Have to (but that was too long, so yeah)
> 
> Naturally, this isn't going to be a fun, happy chapter. Heads up, guys.
> 
> 13BlueBananas, I hope this meets your standards for a 'five times' fic XD
> 
> Disclaimer: IDORotG

"Gah!" Jack cried seconds before he slammed into the trunk of a rather large tree and tumbled to the snow-covered ground below.

It had taken him a while, but he'd eventually learned that the wind didn't _obey_ him; wasn't his to control. The wind had semi-sentience and a mind of its own. He could only fly because it was willing to carry him. And in the few months after he'd emerged from the pond before he'd realised this he'd had a rather tough time flying without falling or hitting things. If he was going to harness the wind's power, he had to acknowledge that they had a partnership; not a dictatorship.

"Ow," he said, rubbing a sore spot on his head as he sat up, the snow dislodging from where it had settled in his clothes and hair.

But he must still be doing something wrong if he was still crashing half the time.

The wind gently rustled his hair in apology. In truth, his rather unspectacular flights weren't actually Jack's fault at all. The wind he rode had only rarely carried creatures larger than birds on its breath before, and while it greatly loved its winter child, it still needed a little more practice in knowing how to spread itself and how quickly it needed to move in what direction. Unfortunately, it had no way of conveying any of this to the boy, and so Jack continued to blame himself.

"Sorry," Jack apologised, getting to his feet. "Shall we try again?"

The wind rose in excitement at his suggestion, ready to give it another go and bring forth the beautiful smile that accompanied Jack's child-like joy.

They made it nearly five kilometres further than the last time before Jack shifted his body just far enough that the wind lost its control over balance and he plummeted, unable to catch himself on his sudden descent.

Jack crashed through no less than six thick branches before the trees dropped him to the earth below. The wind wrapped around him in concern, silently asking if he was alright.

Jack groaned as he sat upright, holding his right arm to his chest. "I'm okay," he managed. "But I think my arm is broken."

The wind moaned a mournful cry, a deeply sad and remorseful sound echoing through the forest in which they were.

"It's okay, I'm okay," the winter spirit tried to placate it. "Look, I'll just set it and make a cast and it'll be good as new in no time!"

Setting the bone turned out to be far harder and more painful than he'd thought. He'd had to use his feet to hold his wrist in place and pull back with his shoulder and good hand to get the bone back into its proper position. His cries of pain were louder than the wind's.

"S-see?" he smiled shakily. "'S all good. Just gotta make the cast now."

He had to wait until he could catch his breath, and the cast was really just a covering of thick ice that would stop the bone slipping again, but it was all he could do and it was all he needed.

 

* * *

 

Jack learned about the effect of heat on winter spirits the hard way. If someone had have just _told_ him that it wasn't a good idea to stay in Burgess all year around, he wouldn't be in this mess to begin with. But _no_ , so there he was lying on the bank of his pond melting into a puddle of water.

"Ugh, I think I'm dying," he groaned.

The wind blew on him, trying to cool him down, but with the heat that naturally accompanied the season, its efforts were in vain.

"I know, I know," Jack continued with a lazy flap of his hand. "It's my fault and I should have gone somewhere cooler when winter ended blah blah blah…"

He contemplated going to lie in the pond but the thought of submerging himself in the water was enough to send an unknown trill of fear creeping down his spine. The wind picked up again, pushing on him as if to urge him on.

"You're right," he sighed, trying to force his overheated body upright. "I should get out of here before it gets even worse." He used his staff as a crutch to get to his feet and then once again to stay there. "C'mon, wind, let's go somewhere cold. Like Antarctica."

The wind, happy to be of service to its winter child, swept him up in its embrace and started directing him southwards. But he was dazed and only semi-alert, not able to properly work with it to keep him in the air and on track. In the end his flight became so unstable it was forced to set him down again lest he fall out of the sky. They hadn't even managed to leave the state.

"There has to be somewhere cold around here," Jack mumbled, wiping copious amounts of sweat (or was it water?) from his brow. He was out of Burgess now, in another town further south.

He let his unfocused gaze drift over the buildings and people surrounding him until his eyes settled on a restaurant. Perfect.

He hobbled more than he walked over to the building, pushing open the door with waning strength. The customers and workers inside looked up as it swung inwards, but of course they couldn't see him. One of the beauties of being invisible was that he could walk through to the kitchens and then to the back where the large, walk-in fridge and freezer was without so much as a sideways glance in his direction. Although it did catch some employees' attention when the freezer door opened and closed of its own accord.

The wind couldn't reach him locked away as he was in the freezer with the food stores, but Jack was too exhausted to care, revelling in the feeling of chill all around him. He'd just sit there long enough for his body temperature returned to normal levels and then he'd worry about flying down where the weather wasn't as mutinous.

 

* * *

 

Jack curled up on his side, both arms wrapped around his stomach.

"Oh, man, I knew I shouldn't have eaten that burrito," he groaned, wishing he would throw up already so that he would feel at least partially better. That was the last time he ate leftovers from the park. He'd rather starve than go through this pain again. He didn't really need to eat anyway.

The wind directed the snowfall in his direction, slowly coating him in a layer of flakes in an attempt to offer comfort in the only way it knew how. Jack looked up at the gentle flurry and smiled, understanding the gesture, even if it didn't actually do anything to stifle his stomach's protests.

Burrowing down into the snow to sleep the sickness off, he murmured, "Thanks, wind."

It was going to be a long night.

 

* * *

 

The little girl curled in on herself in a wedge between two sections of the building, striking match after match in a futile attempt to keep herself warm. Her clothes were far too tattered to be of any use and there were more holes in her gloves than there was material.

Jack watched sadly as he sat beside her, able only to offer his presence as comfort, even though she couldn't see him. He couldn't make winter stop, whether he wanted to or not, and the girl, he knew, couldn't go home. Not after such a poor day of sales. Her father wouldn't be pleased. They both knew what would happen before the night was over, but neither mentioned it. But Jack kept the snowfall off her as best he could.

He couldn't understand why she was smiling. Each time she lit a match her face would brighten like the flickering flame, as though the mere presence of its tiny light had somehow magically transported her somewhere better; somewhere warm. But then the match would go out and her peace would end until she lit another one.

Soon, though, it seemed to not be enough and she struck every match in the bundle she had against the wall, creating a blaze like a miniature campfire. Slowly, slowly her eyes started to drift shut, a small, happy smile gracing her face. She was gone before the matches went out.

And Jack cried for her. He sat there in the snow, cursing it and the world silently in mourning for a child who had departed from life too young. He cursed the moon for looking on so damn silently and seemingly without a care. And when the sun came up he cursed that too, because how could the world keep turning and time keep ticking when it had stopped for her? He wept because no one else was there to. And he wept because it just wasn't _fair._

When he finally left that spot in the snow by the building and the girl who looked so peaceful in spite of the cold that had claimed her, it was midmorning and people had started to notice. He didn't want to hear their pitied words and half-hearted sadness. They'd all seen her the previous day and walked by without doing anything.

The wind was his sole support and comfort, and it listened as he spoke, never judging, but never talking back, either. It would take a long time for his heart to heal, but it would. And he would do it by himself because, like the girl in the snow, he didn't have anyone else.

 

* * *

 

Jack hissed in pain as he landed heavily in the highest branches of a tree. The howls and calls of the wolves that had attacked him were still echoing in the distance, moving ever closer, but they would be unable to get to him if he stayed up high and out of reach.

With a wince he looked down and surveyed the damage. His ankle was a bloody mess, more red than the pale flesh pink it normally was. The wind did its best to blow his scent away from the predators that had attacked its favourite winter child; it was a small gesture but all it could do. It didn't have hands to clean the wound or bandage it.

Grabbing a handful of snow from the closest branch, Jack began rubbing it against the blood still seeping from the teeth-marks in his leg, doing his best to clean it with the minimal resources he had.

"Looks like that's the best I can do," he sighed, touching the crook of his staff against the wound to ice it over. So long as he did nothing to aggravate it, it should heal seamlessly within an hour or two. That didn't mean it didn't hurt though.

"As soon as my foot's working again, we're getting out of this forest," he told the wind with a fake smile. "How about Greenland? I hear it's more white than green."

The wind chortled in reply, rustling the few leaves that remained on the tree. It would go with its child absolutely anywhere.

 

* * *

 

"Ow," Jack cried, glaring down at the half-carved sculpture he'd been admiring. "Stupid wood."

"Sweet Tooth? Are you okay?" Tooth asked worriedly, fluttering over and trying to get a good look at his finger.

"I'm fine, Tooth," he reassured her. "Just a splinter."

She gently took his hand in both of her own, examining the tiny speck with the scrutiny of a jeweller.

"Sandy, can you get me some tweezers?" she asked the man in question, who had floated over with a look of concern on his face.

At the request he glanced up at her and nodded, making to head out in search of a first aid kit.

"Guys, it's really not a big deal," Jack rolled his eyes.

"Hang on, mate," Bunny halted the Sandman. "No need for that; my claws'll get the bugger."

"Come on, Bunny, not you too."

Jack was ignored, Tooth relenting his hand over to the Pooka who mimicked her earlier inspection. Carefully he used the claws on his right paw with the accuracy of a tweezers master. Jack tried not to wince as they dug in a little painfully.

"What has happened here?" North's booming voice called for their attention.

Sandy displayed a rather exaggerated image of a stake sticking out of a hand.

"Splinter?" North correctly guessed, moving over to them. "Ah, was my carving that did it, no? I apologise, Jack, I will be more careful with my projects in future."

"Guys, you're making _way_ to big a deal out of a tiny splinter," Jack rolled his eyes, taking his hand back from Bunny who had successfully removed the hand-invader.

"What if you'd left it in there and it'd gotten infected?!" Tooth gasped, whatever she was imagining (probably something far worse than reality) clouding her face in horror.

Jack opened his mouth to protest but was cut off by North.

"She is right, Jack; is best to remove as soon as possible. Better safe than stricken, no?"

"It's safe than _sorry_ , North," Bunny corrected.

"Is what I say."

Jack shook his head fondly at their antics. They weren't the most functional family, but he wouldn't trade them for the world.


	58. 'Boogie'man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been so excited for this one cause I've been laughing about it ever since HeavensLuminousArc brought it up XD
> 
> I hope I did your idea justice!
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own RotG, Apple products, or the song 'You Spin Me Round' by Dead or Alive (or the Little Match Girl, which I forgot to disclaim in the previous chapter, hence doing it here)

Jack shoved a fist into his mouth to bite back the laughter threatening to bubble up in his throat. Who knew North had a security office? The yeti on duty had spotted him in the doorway and waved him in and now they were going through a few highlights caught on camera. He'd particularly enjoyed the ones from the times he'd tried to break in, or the one where the elves had tried to create some sort of giant robot armour and ended up blowing a fuse and leaving the Workshop in darkness, but his favourite was still the one where his seasonal siblings had passed around eggnog to the elves with rather sadistic expressions on his face. It was recent, too, and he had a rather decided feeling that he didn't want to know the story behind that one.

But then they reached another folder and another file which quickly replaced the eggnog one as his favourite; not just because of the video itself – but also its _potential_. Actually, now that he thought about it, this wasn't the first time he'd seen the potential, only at that time he hadn't had any way of recording it. But now…

"Hey, do you think I could get a copy of this?" Jack asked the yeti (Jim, if he remembered correctly).

Jim nodded, probably thinking the exact same thing he was, and pulled a USB out of a drawer.

 

* * *

 

"Jamie, I need to borrow you!" Jack called through the classroom window. The pane of glass muffled his voice but Jamie still heard (along with several others, he noted happily), turning his head away from where his teacher was talking about something or other to stare at him.

"I'm in class," he mouthed back.

Jack held up the USB he'd borrowed from Jim as if that explained everything. "This is more important!"

Jamie rolled his eyes, turned back to the front of the class and held up his hand.

"Yes, Jamie," his teacher asked, eyebrow raised.

"Could I please go to the bathroom?"

"Quickly, then."

Jamie hurriedly scooted out of his seat and out the door, heading in the opposite direction of where he'd claimed to be going.

"This better be important," he told the winter spirit the moment he stepped outside. "Calculus is really hard."

"Calcu-what? Nevermind. Yes, I promise it's really important. But we're going to need a computer," Jack replied, an energetic grin splitting his face.

"Can it wait until lunch? Then we'll have a whole hour instead of a few minutes."

"Fiiiiiine," Jack groaned. "How long 'til lunch?"

"About an hour."

Jack heaved an exaggerated sigh but relented, deciding to follow Jamie back to the classroom. He quickly decided he hated calculus, after which point very little calculus actually got done.

 

* * *

 

They borrowed a computer in one of the science labs. After plugging in the USB and playing the file, Jamie was quick to conclude that, yes, this was more important than calculus.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Jamie asked, an uncharacteristically conniving grin on his face.

"If you're thinking of making this into a remix with music then yes, yes I am."

"Hang on, I think I have just the song," Jamie reached into his bag and rummaged around until he found his iPod. "Do spirits have the equivalent of YouTube?"

"I don't think so," Jack frowned. "But I do know someone who has a rather large connections base and would _love_ to spread this as far as possible. We'll have to put it on some kind of portable device, though."

"Perfect."

 

* * *

 

Lleu was laughing so hard he couldn't breathe. Jack had to snatch the mp4 player off him before he could drop it or incinerate it. Jamie had said it was old and that it didn't matter too much if it got damaged, but he would rather keep it in as few pieces as possible; especially if it was going to be making a few trips around the world.

"I-I knew he was the Boogieman," Lleu gasped, trying to catch his breath. "But I didn't- didn't know he was the- the _Boogie_ man!"

Jack snorted at the joke, pausing the video. "So, think you can make it go viral?"

"I would be _honoured_. How did you get this?!"

"It was caught on the security cameras at the North Pole and Jamie made the remix and added the music."

"That kid is gold," Lleu said, slowly calming down. "Never let him go."

"I don't intend to."

"Okay, okay, I have to go show this to Fool," Lleu took the mp4 player from him. "Catch you later, Snow Cone!"

Jack waved, silently hoping Pitch never found out (although a part of him wanted him to know at the same time). He would probably never forgive him for spreading a video of him dancing on North's Globe to _Dead or Alive_ 's 'You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)'. But, to be fair, it was Pitch's fault; if he hadn't showed off his Broadway skills (numerous times, actually) during that little fiasco when he'd tried to take over, Jack wouldn't have had the video to begin with.

Satisfied with that conclusion, Jack chuckled to himself as he flew back to the Pole to return the USB. And maybe there were some more videos worth watching.


	59. To Be Hugged by a Jumping Castle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something fun from the mind of TugLover98 (Thank you for your brilliance) Also, the line "I don't know what your problem is..." is from TL98, so all credit to you!

Sandy blinked as two blasts of wind – one cold and the other hot – tore past him as he touched down in the Workshop. He let his eyes dart the way the air had been flowing to see a blue blur dash around a corner, closely followed by a white one. A thin golden eyebrow rose before Sandy shook it off as unimportant and made to find North.

That is, until he heard the voices.

"Aw, come on, Snow Cone! You know you want to~"

"STAY AWAY!"

Well, the latter was definitely Jack, but the former… Sandy had thought it was the summer spirit, but it couldn't be, could it? Why would Lleu be so far north?

Deciding this warranted further investigation, Sandy abandoned his earlier objective and began making his way in the direction the voices were coming from. It wasn't hard to find them – Jack had left a trail of frost that had miraculously not melted in Lleu's presence.

"I don't know what your problem is, Jack; I think I look fabulous!"

The sound of Lleu led him straight to them; Jack had obviously taken a wrong turn and had cornered himself in a mostly empty storeroom. But it wasn't that that caught the Sandman's attention.

It was what Lleu was wearing.

He looked, for lack of a better term, like a giant marshmallow. Only his head was spared from the puffiness, but despite how absolutely ridiculous he appeared, he seemed to be loving every moment of it.

"Sandy, help!" Jack cried, catching sight of the golden man watching in confusion from the doorway.

Lleu dropped his arms, which had been held out on either side of himself, and turned to peer over his shoulder.

"Hey, Sandman!" he beamed. "What do you think of my new outfit?" he asked, turning a little to the side to give Sandy a better view. "Isn't it great? Although I think it makes my bum look big."

Sandy formed a question mark.

"North made it," Lleu explained. "Keeps all the heat in so I can do this!"

Without warning, the summer spirit surged towards his opposite. Jack could only widen his eyes in horror before fat, pudgy arms wrapped around him and smooshed him into an equally pudgy body. His struggles were in vain, and in the end he resigned himself to the equivalent of being hugged by a jumping castle. Actually… maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to tell the elves to jump on him…

Sandy laughed silently at the sight. It wasn't the most fashionable thing he'd ever seen, but it seemed to do the job; Jack didn't look like he was overheating or burning at all. If Jack had have been able to see the Sandman he would've glared.

"I'm going to kill North," Jack cursed, his voice muffled. Then, louder, "You can let me go now."

"I could," Lleu agreed, but didn't.

"Will you?"

"Nope," he popped the 'p'.

" _Why?_ " Jack whined.

"Because this is fun and I like annoying you," Lleu replied like it was obvious. "Also because I've known you for, like, a century or two and this is the first time I've been able to do this. Maybe I'll just hug you forever."

"We both have jobs to do, you know," came the irritated reply.

"Not at the moment. So I figure that gives me at least three months. And it's not like the seasons won't change if we're not there."

A wordless groan erupted from where Jack's head was submerged in… whatever it was the suit was made of. "Sandy, help."

"Sandy's gone," Lleu told him. "He left a little while ago."

"What? Where?"

"Something about a camera?"

"SANDY!"


	60. A Night of Stualness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so the title's not going to make sense until you read the chapter ^^;
> 
> It's a request from markwyldespinebuster who wanted to see more drunkenness scenes. Personally I don't think it's as good as 'Guardian of Funny Tasting Eggnog', but them's the breaks with things like this.
> 
> Disclaimer: IDORotG. Or Disney

"Ah, Guardians, welcome."

Jack stared at the old man standing on the threshold, holding the door open for them, in confusion. He had a sash with the current year printed on it slung over his shoulder and a top hat sat perched upon his grey hair. But that wasn't what baffled the winter spirit. Wasn't Baby New Year supposed to be… well, a baby? He thought it might be a touch rude to ask, so kept his mouth shut as he followed the others inside.

It was actually his first time being invited to the holiday icon's annual party, and he had a feeling he'd only been invited this time because of his new status as a Guardian. Nevertheless, their host seemed like a nice enough guy. That didn't stop him from asking Bunny about the baby thing once he'd gone off to greet other guests, though.

"Alphaios is only a baby at the start of the year," Bunny explained. "He then grows old til New Year's when he becomes a baby again."

"Oh. Sucks to be him."

Bunny shrugged in a 'what can you do' kind of way.

"Oh, Jack, how lovely to see you!"

Winter spirit and Pooka turned as Mother Nature sauntered over, a beaming smile on her beautiful face.

"Mother Nature," Bunny nodded respectfully.

"And hello to you, Aster," she returned the greeting.

"Hey, Mother," Jack tried not to laugh at the semi-horrified look Bunny was subtly giving him.

"You really are a teenager, aren't you," Mother scowled, fussing with his hair and hoodie. North had wanted him to wear a suit but Jack had flat out refused. Tooth had made him brush his hair, at least, but a ride on the sleigh did wonders to fix that.

Jack just grinned easily, pulling away before she decided his attire needed correcting. Manny knew what would happen if she wanted him in more formal wear. "Are the others here?"

"Yes, they arrived shortly after me. I believe they're over by the snack table."

"…Lleu's not wearing anything… inflated, is he?"

A bemused expression flittered across her face. "No?"

"Phew!" Jack laughed. "I'll catch you later, Mother, Bunny!"

Mother Nature waved pleasantly but Bunny still looked gobsmacked and horrified at the casual way he'd been talking to her. If she'd been in a bad mood he would have been the first on the floor bowing at her feet, but when she was enjoying herself like this it was more than safe to treat her like one would their own mother. He was pretty sure she liked it, too.

 

* * *

 

"Enjoying that?" Jack smirked as he nearly walked into Sandy, who was drinking from two different wine glasses simultaneously.

Sandy nodded enthusiastically and gulped down the last remnants of the wine before placing them on the tray of a wandering waiter and grabbing two more, one of which he held out to Jack.

"Oh, I don't know," Jack said awkwardly.

"Oh go on, have a drink. You're over eighteen, aren't you?" Alphaios asked, joining them.

"Um, technically…"

Alphaios took one of the drinks from Sandy and Jack's hand, forcing the two together. "It's New Year's Eve," he declared. "We must celebrate!"

Jack looked from the old man to the equally enthused Sandman and shrugged mentally. One little drink wouldn't hurt. "Okay," he relented, taking a sip.

"That's the spirit!"

 

* * *

 

"Oh, I'd expected Jack to be with you."

The three seasonal spirits broke from their conversation as Mother Nature approached.

"Jack's here?" Ceres asked with a raised brow.

"Yes, he came with the Guardians."

"Haven't seen him," Lleu frowned, scanning the crowd around them for a sign of the familiar white-haired boy.

"Strange, I thought he was coming to find you hours ago."

May set down her hardly touched glass of white wine on a table. "Shall we go find him, then? We can let him know you were looking for him if you like."

"Oh, I wasn't looking for him, I just happened to notice he wasn't with you," Mother Nature clarified. "It is nice to see him here tonight, though."

"Never thought he would have been invited," Ceres added, half to herself. Mother Nature acted like she hadn't heard.

"We'll go find him," Lleu reassured. "C'mon, ladies."

 

* * *

 

"So, Alph – I can call you that, right? – how do you become a baby, anyway?"

The sound of Jack's voice, slightly slurred, led the trio straight to him and they paused as soon as they spotted him. He was standing talking to Alphaios and the Sandman, all of whom had rather giddy expressions (although they suspected Sandy wasn't actually drunk – the little man could probably give North a run for his money with the amount he could drink).

"Magic," Alphaios replied mystically, waving a hand through the air.

"Hey, I can use magic!" Jack gasped, pausing with his glass half-way to his mouth. "Do you think that means I could become a baby too?"

Sandy shook his head, no, but then a picture of a clock appeared above him.

"Time? Ooooooh you're right! We should ask Father Time to turn us all back into babies!"

"But then we wouldn't be able to have any more wine!" Alphaios replied, taking a huge swig of his drink.

"Oh no," May said, dread lacing her tone. "Jack's drunk again, isn't he?"

"This is pretty bad," Lleu nodded.

"Who votes we pretend we didn't see anything and leave them to deal with him?" Ceres asked, half turning as if to run away.

Before the other two could respond, Jack happened to glance their way, eyes lighting up as he caught sight of them.

"Hey guys!" he beamed, passing his glass to Sandy and breaking away from the older two spirits who continued chatting.

"Hey, Jack," Lleu gave a pained smile.

"Who gave you alcohol?" May asked monotonously, her expression dark.

"The plate," Jack said blankly.

"Let me rephrase that. Who let you drink alcohol?"

"Oooooh. Sandy and Alph," his gaze drifted down to her dress, still white but more formal than her usual one. "You look so pretty!" he gushed. "Is that a Saint Laurent?"

May blinked. "You like it? It's actually something I found in–" she cut herself off when she realised Lleu and Ceres were staring at her.

"Don't mind us," Lleu smirked. "Continue your discussion."

Perhaps commenting hadn't been the best decision as Lleu suddenly found himself being stared at by his opposite.

"You remind me of Harry Penguini," he told the summer spirit with a completely straight face.

"Umm…"

"He's one of my penguins," Jack explained like it was the most normal thing in the world. "He likes to do magic tricks; mostly making fish disappear. You look like him with that suit on."

Lleu looked down at the tuxedo he'd been forced to wear. "Okay, yeah, I can see how I do kinda look like a penguin." The back of the coat even had a tail. "Hold up," he paused. "How come I got forced into this monkey–"

"Penguin."

"–penguin suit and had to relent to having my hair _pulled back into a pony tail_ while you get to go around in the same clothes you wear every day? It doesn't even look like you brushed your hair!"

"My penguins might think I'm mocking them," Jack said, looking down at himself. "And if I wore a suit they'd make me wear shoes. I don't like shoes," he whispered.

A waiter carrying a tray of mini quiches walked past and Jack snatched a couple, holding one out to Ceres. "Have you tired these?" he asked around a mouthful of snack. "They're so good!"

"You can tell they've been made with frozen vegetables," Ceres commented, accepting the snack.

"Guys, I think we're getting off topic," May shook her head.

"You're right!" Jack gasped. "What were we talking about?"

"You and alcohol," Lleu sighed.

"Oh. Don't tell Lleu and the others!"

The three seasonals exchanged glances.

"Tell them what?" May asked carefully.

"That I've been drinking. I'm not supposed to be drinking."

"Then why did you?"

"Peer pressure, mostly. What if I didn't and then Alph wouldn't like me anymore and then he might kick me out and then I'd have to go find something else to do and Tooth would look at me sadly cause I screwed up again and maybe they'd kick me out of the Guard–"

"Whoa there, Snow Cone," Lleu cried, stopping that train wreck before it could begin. "No one's getting kicked out of anywhere. But you know what alcohol does to you. Promise you won't drink anymore."

"I do?"

"Ugh, what's the point?" Ceres groaned. "He's not going to remember any of this in a few hours."

"What?" Jack's attention snapped to her, his expression nothing short of horrified. "I'm… I'm going to forget? I don't want to forget again! What if I never remember? What if I lose all my memories again? I can't… I don't- I can't!"

"Jack, calm down," May hushed, placing both hands on his shoulders to ground him. "It's alright. You're not going to lose all your memories."

"You promise?" he looked so vulnerable, so scared.

"I promise."

Jack sighed in relief.

"So what are we going to do with him?" Ceres turned to her fellow sober spirits, talking a tone too quiet for their fourth member to hear. "I'd really like it if we didn't have a repeat of last time."

"Maybe we should find Sandy and get him to knock him out? Sleep seemed to do the trick last time," Lleu suggested.

"What is with these irresponsible spirits and giving minors alcohol?" May hissed. "First North and now Sandy? I mean, Alphaios I can understand, but the other two are supposed to be Guardians, aren't they?"

"If I could have your attention, please!" Alphaios' voice echoed throughout the room, drawing everyone's attention to the stage upon which he stood. "First of all I'd like to thank you all for coming to this little end of year celebration. It's been wonderful having you all here, and I look forward to next year when we do it all again! In exactly a minute we will be saying goodbye to this year and hello to the next, so get those New Year's resolutions ready! The countdown will begin shortly!"

"Good, we can go home soon," Ceres drawled.

"So what's the plan? Find Sandy?" May raised a brow.

"Um, guys, I think we might need to find Jack first."

The women's attention shot to where Jack had been standing, only to find he was gone.

"Oh no."

 

* * *

 

"Oi, Jack!"

Jack turned with a bright smile as a familiar Australian accent reached his ears. "Hey Bunny!" It was about ten minutes after they'd finished the countdown (and Jack had been a little upset when he'd realised they weren't counting down a spaceship or an explosion… although fireworks could be considered explosions and rockets…)

Bunny was looking at him strangely. But, then, Bunny _was_ a very strange… well, bunny, but this was different. Not only did he look strange, but he was staring strangely. So it was like two times the strange. Dual-strange. Dunge. Or maybe strual.

"Are you okay, mate?" Bunny asked cautiously. Still looking straul (or was it strual _ly_?).

"Never better," he grinned.

"It's just you've got a wine glass on your head."

Jack blinked. He did? "I do?" A hand reached up, easily located said wine glass. Oh, now he remembered. "I was eating those little quiche things but I was thirsty and I didn't have enough hands so I just put it there. Guess I must've forgotten about it," he shrugged.

"Uh-huh," Bunny crossed his arms, his brows furrowing like he was trying to figure out some complex puzzle.

"Are _you_ okay?" Jack returned the original question. "You're looking kinda strual."

"Kinda str- what?"

"You know, strual?"

"No, mate, I honestly have no idea what you're talking about." His eyes widened suddenly. "Where's your staff?"

Jack gazed around himself as if in half-hearted search for it before he said, "I left it over by Befana." Bunny followed Jack's finger to the old woman in question. His staff was leaning against the wall beside her broom.

"Okay… why did you leave it there? I thought you flipped out whenever you didn't have it with ya."

"Well, it saw her broom and one thing led to another and so I decided to give them some privacy." A pause. "You're looking strual again."

"Did you hit your head?" Bunny pulled back Jack's fringe as if inspecting for bumps or bruises.

"I don't think so?"

"Wait a minute," Bunny sniffed. "You've had alcohol, haven't you? How much and who let you?"

"I lost count after the third one."

Bunny suddenly looked very angry. So now he was strange and angry. Strangely angry. Strangry. Angely? Jack didn't know, but whatever the case, Bunny was it.

"Why do you suddenly look like you're trying to melt me with your eyes?" Jack hedged. "You can't actually do that, right?!"

"There you are!" Lleu called out, coming to a stop beside the two of them. "Oh, hey, Bunny. You're looking rather murderous today."

Jack leaned towards the red-head and muttered conspiratorially, "You could say he's… _hopping_ mad."

Lleu snorted but awkwardly cleared his throat when Bunny glared at him.

"Don't encourage him, mate."

"Is this the part where I accidentally nearly impale my sister and run away to a mountain to make an ice castle?" Jack asked, completely oblivious to the atmosphere. "Cause I think that might be problematic. Since, you know, she's not exactly here."

"Have you been watching Disney movies?" Lleu raised a brow.

"What the heck made you bring that up?" Bunny frowned.

"Well, this is a party, right? And Elsa went crazy during a party. I feel like I could go crazy. But I don't think I'd want an ice castle. Can you imagine how uncomfortable the bed would be? And don't even get me started on the plumbing problems. What did she even eat?"

"Who gave him alcohol?" Bunny glared at Lleu.

"He said it was Sandy and Alphaios," Lleu said, raising his hands in self-defence.

"Then they're gonna wish they'd– Where did Jack go?"

 

* * *

 

"Fireworks are so… what do the kids say these days? Cool?" Mother Nature mused as she stood on the balcony, watching the colours explode against the dark night sky.

"Except they're really hot," Jack laughed, standing beside her. He'd spotted her standing alone and had decided to join her, but not before grabbing his staff, which had had a falling out with Befana's broom. Apparently the broom was a bit shady. Besides, Jack didn't want to have to deal with a pining staff and with the broom having roots in Italy, he would end up having to make heaps of trips just for them to catch up. He didn't tell his staff any of this, of course. Better to live and let lie.

Mother Nature glanced at him from the corner of her eye.

"Hey, I wonder how they'd look if I froze them! They'd be like water fountains, only without the fountain. They'd be like water!"

"Jack–"

"THE MOON!" Jack suddenly gasped as the light from the moon appeared from behind a cloud. He narrowed his eyes at it. "So we meet again, _Manny_. What, not going to talk to me? Well maybe I'll make you talk. Maybe I'll fly right on up there and give you a piece of my mind! And then maybe you could give me a piece of that cheese the moon is supposed to be made of."

The wind whipped around him at his mental call and he shot upwards, intending to do just as he'd said, but a hand grabbed his ankle and he was hauled downwards and wrapped in a slender but strong embrace.

"You smell like maple," he told his captor, not bothered in the slightest that his plan had been foiled. It was the wrong season for space travel, anyway. Not to mention he'd forgotten to pack spare underwear. "Have you been in Canada? I hear they have scratch-and-sniff money." He frowned. "Or did I dream that? It sounds like something that wouldn't happen in real life."

"Jack."

"Do you think a dream really is a wish your heart makes?"

"Jack."

"I mean, what if there was someone who didn't have a heart? Could they still have dreams? Does that mean they don't have ambitions? Or does it mean dreams like the kind Sandy brings?"

"Jack."

"And if it means the kind like Sandy's, does that mean even the really weird dreams are your heart's wishes, too?"

"Jack!"

"Cause this one time I had a dream I was eaten by a giant turtle and I'm pretty sure I don't wish for that to happen."

"Jack!"

"Yes?"

"Stop talking for a moment."

Jack stayed silent.

"Have you had any wine tonight?"

Jack nodded.

"How much?"

He couldn't lift his hands to show her a finger count from where he was still being hugged by her, so he tried to transmit the information directly into her brain.

"You can speak to answer my questions," she sighed.

"I don't remember. Four? Maybe five?"

"Alright," she said in a calm tone that didn't match the way her face was scrunching up in anger. "And why did you drink so much?"

"I didn't want to, but then Sandy was offering and Alph said it was a celebration and that it was fine since I've been around for a few hundred years and… Are you mad at me?" he asked hesitantly, averting his gaze.

"No, Jack," she reassured him through gritted teeth. "Not at you. I'd like you to go home and sleep now, alright?"

"Oh okay," he slipped free of her embrace and called on the wind. He made it about a foot off the ground before he stumbled and Mother dragged him back down.

"Perhaps you shouldn't fly. I will organise transport for you back to my castle. You may spend the night there."

 

* * *

 

Bunny and the three seasonals were in a state of panic. They'd looked everywhere and Jack was still missing. If they didn't find him soon there was no telling what kind of trouble he could get himself into.

"We need to find him," May bit her lip. "He's not as drunk as he was last time but he might still do something stupid."

"You four!"

Seasonals and Pooka snapped to attention as a very angry looking Mother Nature stalked towards them, dragging what appeared to be Baby New Year by the ear behind her.

"Uh oh," Lleu cringed. "She doesn't look happy."

"Can you tell me where to find Sanderson Mansnoozie?" she asked with no small trace of venom.

"So… you know about Jack, then?"

"Oh, I know alright."

"You wouldn't happen to know where he is now, then, would ya?" Bunny asked, hunched like he was expecting her to blow up.

"I sent him back to my place to sleep. Now if you're not going to tell me where Sanderson is, move aside."

"I think I saw him by the snack table," May said quietly.

"Thank you," Mother Nature curtly walked off in the direction indicated, toddler Alphaios being tugged along for the ride.

They watched as Sandy spotted her coming, his carefree grin slipping into a look of horror. None of them could say they felt sorry for him when she grabbed him with her free hand and dragged both him and her other victim out of the room.

"Well, that'll teach 'em," Bunny shrugged. "Saves us havin' a go at 'em, too."

"What's the bet she accidentally tears down one of the walls?" Ceres smirked.

"I'm saying maybe 65%," Lleu said noncommittally, snagging a hors d'oeuvre from a passing waiter. "Maybe 70."

"Well, we all know what their New Year's resolutions are going to be," May said. "To avoid Mother Nature."


	61. Retaliation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is so long! But hey, at least I didn't have to break it up. And you guys get lots to read.
> 
> Another conglomeration! This time it's a mix between Mysteryfan17's request (two of them, actually) and a prompt from Shinku. Enjoy!
> 
> Heh Drawn to Life reference XD
> 
> Disclaimer: I disclaim.

"Gah!" Jack jumped, leaping out from the shade of the tree he'd been leaning against.

"What's your problem?" Bunny asked, looking up at him from where he'd been tending to one of his flowerbeds.

"I thought something touched me," Jack replied absently, scanning the spot he'd been sitting in and then his clothes for any bugs or creepy crawlies.

Bunny raised a brow but returned to what he'd been doing.

Jack shrugged off the feeling and sat down again; under a different tree this time. He watched Bunny gently lift the petals of a flower like he was trying to coax it out of the ground for a moment before curiosity got the better of him.

"What are you doing?"

Bunny paused again to look at him. "Gardening."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Yes, thank you for that."

"It's earth magic," Bunny smirked, returning to the flower. "Like how you use ice magic, I use earth magic to keep the garden in here alive."

"Oh." That was kind of cool, actually. But there was no way he was going to say that to the rabbit's face. "Can you do other stuff besides growing flowers?"

"Like what?"

"Like throwing rocks around like they do in that show–" Jack cut himself off as something cold (and not the good kind) grabbed his arm. He flung himself forward with a cry, gripping his arm where whatever it was had touched him.

Bunny was staring at him again, but Jack paid him no mind as he cautiously returned to the spot and poked around with his staff. But there was nothing there.

"You alright, mate?" Bunny asked, a frown in his tone.

"I felt it again."

"You're prob'ly just imagining things."

"…" he checked behind the tree and even scanned the branches, but in the end he was forced to conclude there really was nothing to be found. "Yeah, maybe you're right." That didn't stop him from sitting over by Bunny this time, though.

"Don't freeze my flowers," Bunny said without looking up.

"Not intending to."

They sat in silence for a good while, Jack enjoying the warmth of the light in the Warren without overheating and Bunny's company, even if they didn't talk. In all honesty he should have been huddled up at one of the Poles but there was only so long he could stay inside the Workshop and as much as he loved the penguins, he didn't particularly feel up to dealing with their antics today. Sometimes he just wanted some silent company and Bunny was the perfect candidate. The Pooka never said anything, but Jack had a feeling he liked the companionship, too.

When he could no longer contain his fidgety self in one place, Jack hopped up from his cross-legged position and strolled over to one of the sentinel eggs with his staff slung across his shoulders.

"So did you make these guys?" he asked, inspecting the happy face closely.

"Earth magic."

"Should've guessed." He paused. "Wait, does that mean I could make stuff like this out of ice?"

"I don't see why not," Bunny said cautiously. It sounded like he was envisioning all the horrible things Jack would get up to with snow/ice minions in tow. Jack was envisioning it, too, except with far more enthusiasm.

With a grin on his face, Jack let a small breeze lift him up so he was perched atop one of the sentinel eggs. The Warren really was a beautiful place. He bet May would love to spend a few hours in it; maybe she had some tips for Bunny. Or vice versa.

"Whoa!" he cried as the egg beneath him shifted its face to the angry expression. Jack leaned over a little to confirm, before calling out, "Hey, Bunny?"

"What, mate?"

"Your egg giant isn't looking very happy anymore."

"What did ya do to it?" Bunny huffed, looking back over his shoulder at the winter spirit.

"Nothing!"

"You're sitting on its head."

"So?"

"So maybe it doesn't like that."

"They've never had a problem with it before!"

"If ya get smooshed I'm not going to help ya," Bunny told him firmly, apparently losing interest and returning to his gardening.

Jack scowled at his back before looking worriedly down at the sentinel egg as it shifted slightly. "What's up with you?" he muttered, glancing over at another one on the other side of the clearing just as its own face spun around to the angry one. It couldn't have been because of him, then… right?

"No, really, Bunny, I think–" he was cut off as something latched around his head, completely covering his mouth and nose. He thrashed, trying to break free. In an act of desperation he brought up his staff and whacked his assailant with the end of it. It vanished before it could freeze, making him coat himself in an extra layer of frost.

"You think what?" Bunny sighed, crossing his arms as he pivoted his body just enough that he could see Jack.

Jack didn't answer, too busy taking in deep breaths with his hand on his chest as if to calm his racing heart.

"Jack?"

Jack snapped to attention, hastily jumping down from the sentinel and walking backwards towards Bunny, still trying to catch sight of what had attacked him. All of the sentinel eggs had switched to their angry faces by now; they too could sense what Jack had already experienced. But the fact that Bunny hadn't realised it yet was suspicious.

"There's something else down here," he told the Pooka in a hushed, but worried tone. "Look, they know it," he gestured to the stone golems. "It's already tried to get me three times now. Can't you sense it?"

Bunny frowned, ears trying to detect any sound besides the natural noises of the Warren. "I don't… _Oh_. I get it. Nice try, mate; almost got me."

"I- what?" Jack frowned at him, forgetting about being quiet.

"I don't know how ya managed to get the sentinels in on it, but–"

"You think I'm trying to prank you?!" Jack gaped. "Bunny, something just _attacked me_."

"I'm not fallin' for it, mate."

Jack glared and gritted his teeth, storming back over to where he'd been attacked and gesturing with his staff. "I swear to you, something was here and AAARGH!" Jack could only panic as a wave of black surged over him from the shadows, obstructing his view of Bunny and the Warren completely as it engulfed him. He was vaguely aware of Bunny shouting something and his staff being torn from his grip before his body was tugged through shadows and the warm light of the Warren vanished.

 

* * *

 

"Well, well, well," a familiar silky voice reached his ears even before sight returned to him. "Look what the cat dragged in. Or, in this case, Nightmare."

The black sand that had overwhelmed him slid off and formed itself into a Nightmare beside its equally creepy master, who stroked its snout lovingly.

"Pitch," Jack stated. "What do you want?"

"Ah, how lovely, you haven't forgotten me. Although, I suspect _this_ ," he accentuated the words by hurling a piece of plastic to the ground in front of where Jack sat in a heap, "would certainly prohibit any forgetfulness."

Jack stared at the twisted and destroyed thing, trying to figure out why it looked so familiar. It was almost like a… like an mp4 player. Oh no.

"Or perhaps that blasted music you tortured me with? Hmm?" Pitch continued. "Ringing any bells? What about that stupid bird that attacked me in my own home? Did you honestly think I wouldn't realise you were the one behind it all?"

Jack finally tore his eyes away from the Boogieman, taking the time to figure out where, exactly, he was. There was very little light, like they were in a cave of some kind with the entrance around a corner. The rocks were polished smooth and while the air inside was cool, it held promise that outside was a different case.

Oh, and he was sitting in a cage similar to the ones the tooth fairies had been kept in. Wonderful.

"Ah, I see you're finally coming to understand the situation you're in," Pitch said, enjoying the very worried look on the winter spirit's face. "You must have known I would retaliate in some way. Or are you really that daft?"

"What," Jack said slowly, urgently, "do you want?"

"I thought that much was clear," Pitch turned away from him and back towards the darkest shadows. "In an hour or so the tide will start to come in."

Jack's eyes widened in horror. The rocks were smooth from thousands of years of water coursing over them, wearing them down.

"Oh, you don't have to worry about dying," Pitch reassured him. "We're immortal, remember?" his words echoed through the cavern as he disappeared into darkness, taking his Nightmare with him. "Have fun, Jack Frost."

Everything fell to silence except for Jack's breathing, the thudding of his heart and the distant lapping of the ocean against rocks.

 

* * *

 

He knew he should have been panicking. He was trapped who knew where in a cage in a cavern that would soon start filling with water; in all rights he should have been terrified. But he wasn't. He was just bored.

After Pitch had left he'd tried to find a way to break out of the cage, but the most he could do without his staff was coat the bars in a pretty layer of frost. So now he was stuck in a further-reinforced cell with nothing to do to pass the time except think and draw pictures in ice on the floor of the cage.

He'd just finished a silhouette of Baby Tooth when a small stream of water spilled over it, breaking it up and carrying it away. Jack looked up sharply in the direction the minimal light was coming from. Sure enough, water was starting to trickle in. It was only a small amount at the moment, but it would pick up soon.

"Okay, not bored anymore," Jack said to no one. The wind ruffled his hair gently but urgently, as if trying to coax him into getting out faster. "I'd love to, but how do you expect me to do that without my staff? And even if I do manage to figure out a way out of here, I'm still likely going to be stranded in the middle of nowhere."

It blew on him again, whispering and nudging him into action.

"I guess being stranded is better than being drowned. Again."

Jack placed both hands on one of the cage bars, tugging it in hopes that it might be loose. No such luck. _Maybe I can freeze it solid and then break it?_ He doubted he could use that kind of power staff-less but it was worth a shot.

"C'mon, come on," he muttered under his breath, feeling the ice continuing to build beneath his fingers. But all he was doing was coating it, not freezing it. With a tired huff he let his hands drop. "There has to be a way out of here." But there wasn't even a keyhole or a door. "If I had one those sentinel eggs it could just sit on– That's it!"

Sparked with an idea, Jack repositioned himself so he was leaning against the bars with plenty of room in front of him. "Okay, Jack, it's just like what you did in Jamie's room. Except bigger. And more solid."

He started with a large silhouette in the shape of a dragon – may as well get something that could fly him out of there, too (and if he was going to do it, he was going to do it awesomely). But the second it came into being the warm water from the ocean outside wiped it away. Swallowing the irritated growl that formed in his throat, Jack swivelled so that his body would block most of the incoming water long enough for him to try again.

Creating the frost outline was one thing, but making it solid and moveable was another. Jack cupped his hands around the frost picture, shutting his eyes in concentration and mentally willing the dragon to corporeality. He felt his magic work and when he opened his eyes once more, a delicate frost dragon larger than he was sat silently before him.

"Yes!" he laughed. "Now just have to make you more solid," he told it, enjoying the way the wind howled a cheer of its own and ignoring the fact that it was now so cramped in the cage he could barely move.

At his urging, the dragon lifted one giant wing and he proceeded to run his hand along it, adding layer after layer of ice until it was more solid than the delicate being it had once been. By this point the water was at least a centimetre deep, and was starting to creep around him to where the dragon was.

"Okay, time to become a fan," he said, taking a deep breath and blowing on the ice he had formed to keep it solid.

He was more than tired by the time he was done, but it was a proud tired. The dragon wasn't perfect – he wasn't the greatest drawer in the world – but it would do. Hopefully.

"Okay, dragon," he told it, using the bars of the cage to haul himself to his feet. "I need you to bust us out of here."

The dragon roared a sound like the wind and turned to face the bars of the cage. With one talon and its jaws wrapped around a bar, it tugged sharply, trying to at least bend the frost-coated metal. A loud crack temporarily drowned out the sound of the waves and Jack started, watching as one of the dragon's ice claws snapped off. The bars weren't even scratched.

"Oh dear," Jack bit his lip, lifting the claw and pressing it back into place on the dragon's talon and sealing the crack with more ice. "That's probably the best I can do for now," he told it sadly. "Doesn't look like we can force our way out, either." He looked down bitterly at the water that now almost completely covered his feet. "If we could get you out, do you think you'd be strong enough to carry the cage?"

The dragon cried its ghostly sound again, and somehow he knew it was an affirmative. At Jack's mental urging, it exploded into a puff of snowflakes, which the wind then gently carried out of the cage. He'd seen Pitch do something similar with his Nightmares, once; reforming the sand back into shape. So he should be able to do it, too. Right?

He had to push his arms between the bars as far as he possibly could, using his hands to guide each individual snowflake where it needed to go, but he somehow managed to get the dragon back in one piece, except it looked as delicate as it had when he'd first created it.

Jack sighed, resting his forehead against the cool metal. "Come here," he said in mild annoyance. "Let's make you solid again."

He was ready to take a nap by the time he was done, but with the water midway up his thighs, he knew he didn't have the time.

"Ready… Frostwind?" he asked the dragon (it was as good a name as any). "Let's get out of here before we sleep with the fishes. Literally."

Frostwind flapped its wings, barely an inch on either side short of hitting the walls of the cavern. It gripped the top of the cage with all four talons and shot off towards the entrance of the cave. Jack laughed, enjoying himself despite the fact that the cage was dragging on the ground and he was being splashed in lukewarm salt water. It was working! And it could fly! Part of him had expected it to be too heavy to take off with all the ice holding it together, but his worries were for naught.

A huge wave shot up just as they reached the entrance, drenching both Jack and his creation, but the ice was holding and the winter spirit was too overjoyed that they were out to care. But when the rock supporting the cage disappeared, they suddenly plummeted towards the raging waves below and Jack's laughter morphed into a cry of fear.

"Up! Up, Frostwind!"

The ice dragon flapped its wings as hard as it could, barely managing to keep the cage from falling into the water. It strained against the weight, but it was unable to lift the cage any higher.

"Okay, it's okay," Jack cried over the sound of the crashing waves, hands gripping the bars of his prison. "Just focus on getting us somewhere cold! And don't let go!" The last thing he wanted was to go for a dip when there would be no way to get back to the surface. As it was he was too close for comfort, but Frostwind was doing its best and that would just have to be enough.

They'd barely flown for five minutes and already Jack could feel the perspiration settling on his brow and his back. They had to be close to the equator; in spring at the very least. He wasn't sure how much longer he would be able to tolerate it. With weak arms he tugged off his hoodie, tying it around his waist. The white of his shirt would absorb less of the sun's heat, at least.

Frostwind looked like it was feeling the heat, too. The outermost layer of ice was starting to melt and the wind keeping them in the air wasn't doing much to help matters. It would only be a matter of time, Jack knew, before too much of the ice was gone and Frostwind would no longer be able to lift the combined weight of cage and him. And there weren't any islands or rock formations as far as the eye could see.

"Hang in there, Frostwind," he whispered, climbing up as far as he could and reaching for one of the dragon's claws. It wasn't much, but he could send new frost patterns dancing across its surface to try and reinforce the ice that was being lost. Maybe it would be enough to get them to safety. He had to have hope.

It was all he could do.

 

* * *

 

Jack didn't realise he'd fallen asleep until he woke with a jolt to the feeling of weightlessness. The sky had turned dark during his nap and he could barely see anything more than a few metres ahead.

And, oh, they were falling out of the sky.

Jack cried out at the realisation, straining his eyes to make out Frostwind above him. The dragon was still in one piece, but it was a lot smaller and less distinct than it had been and was no longer able to support the weight of the metal cage. It was still flapping, still trying to keep them airborne, but without success.

With a loud splash the cage struck water and started to sink.

Jack gasped, manoeuvring himself as high as he could to keep his head above water, but it was no use. He was vaguely aware of Frostwind desperately trying to fish him out and the wind howling in distress, and only just managed to inhale one final gulp of air before the top of the cage slipped under the pounding waves.

The water wasn't the biting cold of his lake, but the feeling of _drowning, can't breathe, sinking, dying_ was the same and he struggled to move upwards through the water, only to strike metal. A dead end. No way up. All the time he'd spent with Bunny overcoming his fear of water came to naught as he desperately pounded on the iron roof of the cage.

_Got to get out. Have to get out. Drowning. Burning. Air. Gotta get out._

The whole structure was suddenly lurched upwards and his floating body struck the bottom of the cage as it broke the surface. Jack coughed up a lungful of water, gasping for fresh, beautiful air as soon as his passageway was clear.

Frostwind hovered beside him, moaning in concern alongside the wind, their twin cries like a ghostly undertone. Jack frowned. If Frostwind wasn't the one who'd pulled him up, then who…? He let his gaze drift upwards, not bothering to shift from his lying position. Tendrils of glowing gold were wrapped around the top of the cage.

Tears blurred Jack's vision, but he was still able to follow the gold to its source; a worried Sandman. He let out a laugh that sounded more like a sob, his body shaking from the adrenalin as Sandy carried him away from the ocean.

 

* * *

 

"-y, can you hear me?"

Jack opened groggy eyes as a soft voice called out to him. Blurred images slowly came back into focus and he found himself staring up at a worried looking Toothianna.

"Tooth?"

She beamed at him, moving back a bit to let him sit up. "How are you feeling, Sweet Tooth?"

Jack leaned against the armrest of the couch he was seated on, rubbing an eye with the heel of his hand. "I'm okay. Tired, maybe?" he let his eyes rove around the room, but they didn't get far before he spotted the other Guardians, each looking as relieved as Tooth. The cage he'd been in was behind them, several bars cut away. He levelled Bunny with a glare. "Still think I was trying to trick you?"

The Pooka shifted uncomfortably. "I'm sorry," he sighed. "I was so sure you were tryin' to pull a fast one on me I didn't check prop'ly." He held out Jack's staff like a peace offering.

"Thanks," Jack accepted the stick, happily noting the frost patterns that sprung to life as soon as he touched it. "And you're forgiven." He turned his attention to Sandy. "Thanks, little man; for saving me back there. I don't know what would've happened if you hadn't shown up; Fro–" his eyes widened. "Where's Frostwind?!" He frantically searched the room they were in (the Globe Room, he absently noted) but the frost dragon was nowhere to be seen. In the back of his mind he could still feel the magic that kept the dragon in one piece, but he couldn't pin point where, exactly, it was except 'close'.

"Who?" North frowned.

"Frostwind; the dragon!"

Sandy waved his hands in Jack's face to get his attention before pointing out a window.

"Outside?" Jack guessed. Sandy nodded. "Is he okay?"

Sandy bit his lip, waving his hand in a so-so gesture. Ignoring the others' protests, Jack pushed himself to his feet and hurried outside, the Guardians hot on his tail.

Frostwind was curled up right outside the door in a pile of snow, but sat up as soon as Jack stepped outside. It was looking a little worse for wear, but Jack was sure he could repair the damage – especially now that he had his staff back.

"Sweet Tooth, did you make that?" Tooth's voice alerted him to the fact that the others had caught up.

"Yeah," Jack replied absently, creating a new layer of ice over the dragon's back where a lot of it had melted and worn away. "He looks better when he's not melted, though." He peered over his shoulder to face Bunny. "Turns out I _can_ make things out of ice." Then, more quietly, "I'd probably be trapped underwater right now if I couldn't."

North stepped forward with a wondrous glint in his eyes, admiring the craftsmanship even despite Frostwind's sad state. "Is very well made," he nodded, hand on his chin. "I should get you to help me with toy prototypes."

Jack smiled at him. "I'd be happy to; just let me fix him first."

"Of course."

"Not bad for a first try," Bunny said, moving to stand beside the winter spirit.

Sandy gave two thumbs up, grinning in agreement.

Bunny reached up a paw and ruffled the boy's hair. "I'm glad you're alright, Frostbite."

"I think we should call a truce on the pranking for a while," Jack said lightly. "Or at least come up with a code word so we'll know when it's really not a prank."

"I think that's a jolly good idea, mate."


	62. Retaliation (Alternate Ending)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So because NorthernMage is a huge sadist, there is an alternate ending to the previous chapter (Retaliation). I hope it satisfies you :P This ending is almost as long as the original fic XD
> 
> Disclaimer: I disclaim

_Got to get out. Have to get out. Drowning. Burning. Air. Gotta get out._

But he couldn't; there literally was no way out. No cage door to bang against. No keyhole or latch to fight. There was just metal on all sides. Metal and water.

He was running out of air; his lungs were burning, begging him for oxygen that he couldn't reach. He couldn't hold it anymore and cried out in a silent plea for someone, _anyone_ to help him. Seawater flooded into his lungs and darkness crept at the edges of his vision.

_Got to get out… Can't get out…_

Consciousness fled him like water slipping through his fingers (and oh the irony of that), his final thoughts lingering on the fact that no matter how long he stayed lost within the ocean's depths, he would never be able to die.

 

* * *

 

As soon as Bunny had realised Jack wasn't trying to trick him he was on the move. The black sand that had taken him had obviously been the work of Pitch, but that revelation hadn't done much to indicate where to find the wayward winter spirit and so Bunny had opted instead for heading to the Pole and alerting the others.

That had led him to where he was now, sitting in the back of the sleigh and trying not to be sick as he and the other Guardians flew to each and every place they could think of that Pitch might be or go. The list was unsettlingly short and so far they'd come up with diddly-squat.

"Two premolars in Jabalpur," Tooth directed the small swarm of fairies that continuously came and went even as they flew from place to place. Sandy was likewise directing his dream sand while they searched; it allowed them to help and still be with the other two at the same time. And the fairies were all told to keep an eye out for their youngest member and report back immediately if they found him or Pitch.

"He has to be somewhere," North muttered, scanning the skies and the land below.

"I should've believed 'im," Bunny cursed himself, ears flat against his head.

"There is no point in dwelling in past, Bunny. We must stay focused on finding him. That is what's important now."

Bunny nodded, but still he felt like it was his fault.

After hours of fruitless searching, they were forced to retire to the Pole for a break. They wouldn't do Jack any good if they were too tired to keep their eyes open and the reindeer needed a rest. Bunny could see the logic behind the decision, even if he didn't agree with it, and conceded to a half-hour break before slipping down one of his tunnels to search on his own.

 

* * *

 

Three days. It had been three days and still there was no sign of their winter spirit. They hadn't even been able to locate Pitch. There was no sign of either of them and with each passing moment the Guardians grew more and more worried.

They'd stared searching separately to cover more ground; Tooth and her fairies always kept looking on duty, as did Sandy as he drifted above the world. Whenever North had a free moment he would take out the sleigh to scan the earth from the air and Bunny, restricted to his tunnels, searched each and every country in succession. But even their combined forces stretched to the limits had revealed nothing.

"We really need to get a tracking device for this kid," Bunny sighed, running a paw down his tired face. He hadn't stopped for more than half an hour at a time since Jack had disappeared, and while it was wearing him down, he refused to give up. He was the Guardian of Hope for a reason, after all.

 

* * *

 

In the end it was one of Tooth's fairies that found the first clue when she'd been flying over the tropical areas of the Pacific Ocean. She'd zoomed off back home, tooth collecting temporarily forgotten, as fast as her little wings could carry her and reported to her mother.

"Whoa, slow down," Tooth appeased her. "Now start again."

And so the tiny fairy retold the story of how she'd gotten caught up in an unnatural wind storm and the strange thing she'd seen hovering in the air.

"You three," Tooth singled out a few of her fairies. "I want you to each find one of the others and direct them to us. As for you," she turned to the one who had given her the information, "please take me to the exact spot you saw."

All four Mini-Tooths nodded and hurried to do her bidding.

 

* * *

 

The wind was the first thing she noticed. Her little helper hadn't been wrong about the unnatural feel to it. It was circling around a single spot above the waves, churning them up like it wanted to dive down into the depths but couldn't. The gale wasn't strong enough to summon a storm or a hurricane, but it was enough that she had to fight to stay airborne.

The strange thing in the sky was the next thing she noticed. It looked like a large piece of melting ice that may have once held a proper form but was now just a vague outline of what had once been. It continued to dive down into the water again and again, as though in search of something, each time it came up a little more of its surface trickled away. But it was ice. And the first name to spring to mind when someone mentioned ice and the wind was Jack Frost.

Suddenly hopeful, Tooth frantically searched all around the surrounding area, but there was no sign of the winter spirit, nor any place that he could have landed, except… Her gaze settled once more on the way the wind angrily struck the ocean's surface again and again.

"Oh no," she breathed.

"Tooth!"

Tooth spun at the sound of her name, easily spying North heading towards her in his sleigh, paying no mind to the buffeting wind. It seemed he had picked up Bunny and Sandy on his way, as the two of them were seated behind him.

"North, I think he's down there!" she cried, pointing animatedly at the ocean beneath her.

The others looked as horrified as she felt at the declaration; they all knew of Jack's relationship with water (or lack thereof) and, while they knew being immortal meant he would never be able to die from drowning, it certainly didn't change the fact that it wasn't a pleasant experience and was one that could still leave damage – physical or emotional.

"How do we get to 'im?" Bunny asked, standing up despite the way air travel upset his stomach. "The water's gotta be pretty deep and who's to say the current hasn't drifted 'im away by now?"

"Bunny, we must have hope!" North bellowed.

"The only thing I can think of is for one of us to dive down and look for him," Tooth fretted. "Who's the best swimmer?"

"If he is at bottom, none of us will be able to reach him without sharing his fate."

"Then what're we supposed to do?!" Bunny cried.

Sandy wrapped them all in dream sand ropes, the look on his face indicating that he'd been trying to get their attention for some time now. Above his head he created a sand-version of a mermaid.

"Are there any near here?" Tooth asked.

Sandy shrugged, but told them that he knew where some were. He sent out a dream sand manta that sped off knowingly. _It will bring them,_ he conveyed to his friends.

"Great, more waiting," Bunny huffed, plonking himself back down in his seat.

A particularly large splash drew their attention and they all watched as the flying ice thing dove again into the water, only to come back up again a little more worn.

"What is that?" North frowned.

"I don't know," Tooth shook her head. "But judging from the fact that it's made of ice, I'd take a guess and say Jack made it."

Bunny narrowed his eyes in thought. "Ice magic," he muttered.

"What?"

"When he was in my Warren," Bunny explained. "He was asking 'bout the sentinel eggs; wanted to know if he could do somethin' similar with ice. Looks like he managed it, though I have no idea what it's supposed to be."

Sandy showed a block of ice slowly wearing and melting away.

"I think he's right," Tooth looked between Sandy and Bunny. "It's been doing this for a while now and its warm enough out here for the ice to melt; it probably had a proper form when it was made."

"Well, let's hope we'll get to see that proper form when we save Frostbite."

"Sandman, ahoy!"

The Guardians looked down as two heads poked out from beneath the waves, both with hair like seaweed. At Sandy's urging they got as close as they could without being drenched by the spray.

"You sent for us?" one asked.

Sandy nodded and looked to Tooth to explain; it would be quicker than the mermaids trying to figure out his pictures.

"We think Jack Frost might be down there," the Tooth Fairy told them worriedly.

"And you would like for us to check?" the other tilted her head. "Very well." Without another word they slipped back beneath the waves and out of sight.

It was a painful ten minutes before they returned.

"Well?" Bunny asked, making no attempt to be patient.

"He is down there," they confirmed. "But we cannot bring him here."

"Why not?!"

"He is trapped," the round faced one explained. "In a cage of metal. It has no door and is too heavy for us to lift."

The four Guardians shared horrified looks.

"So what can we do?" North asked.

"Perhaps if we had something to tie it to, we could haul it out," the other mermaid suggested.

"Rope?" Tooth supplied. "How long does it need to be?"

"You are lucky; the cage has gotten caught on a craggy ledge and not sunken to the bottom. The rope will need to be roughly 2000 metres."

"Where the hell are we going to get a rope that long?!" Bunny gaped.

"Unless you come down and lift the cage yourselves there is not much that can be done."

"We can go that deep," Tooth said. "With some diving gear it shouldn't be a problem."

"Diving gear?" the round faced one tilted her head. "If it is breathing that troubles you, then this should suffice," she disappeared momentarily before resurfacing with a single glistening scale in hand. "Place it in your mouth and it should allow you to breathe beneath the waves."

"Then what're we waitin' for?" Bunny asked, accepting the scale and doing as instructed before diving in, for once not complaining about the way water drenched his fur.

"Sandy, take care of sleigh, yes?" North handed the Sandman the reigns, who nodded in acceptance. He wouldn't be able to join them.

Tooth and North were quick to follow after Bunnymund, letting the mermaids lead them to where Jack was waiting.

They weren't ready for the sight that greeted them. The cage, as the mermaids had said, was caught on a rock wall. Jack was lying unconscious on the bottom of it, his face slightly blue-tinged and his clothes being tugged by the gentle ebb and flow of the current.

They didn't waste a single second. Bunny and North were quick to get a grip on the bars of the cage, Tooth supplying her own, albeit lesser strength. With one firm tug and the mermaids focusing on dislodging the rocks the cage had caught on, they managed to pull it free.

It was heavier than they'd been expecting and it was a struggle to stop it from slipping free from their grasps and further down into the water. The mermaids quickly abandoned the rocks in favour of getting Jack back to the surface.

"We need to open cage," North said the moment his head broke the surface. The cage was too heavy for them to lift into the sleigh, especially with them in such a position.

"How? The thing is solid iron," Bunny asked, trying to hold the cage and drag Jack up to the surface at the same time.

A sound like howling wind snapped their gazes upward as the ice thing shot down towards them, aided by the increasingly distressed wind itself. Before anyone could react it latched onto the roof of the cage and flapped what remained of its wings furiously, managing to get the cage a little further out of the water, but not enough for them to push it out completely. It didn't give up though, continuing to struggle despite its failing body.

"Idea!" North suddenly shouted. "But we will have to be quick. Sandy, do you think you can take sleigh back to Workshop? Reindeer know the way."

Sandy hesitated for a moment before nodding, gently guiding the deer around and heading back northwards.

"What's your plan, North?" Tooth asked.

"I will use snow globe to open portal back to Workshop."

"Won't that send a lot of water, as well?"

"Yes, which is why we must be quick to limit amount," he turned to the mermaids. "When I release snow globe it would be best for you to move back; we would not want you to get caught up as well. Thank you for all your help."

"It was no trouble," one smiled sadly.

"We hope your winter spirit will be alright," the other added.

North kept one hand on the cage as he reached into the pocket of his water logged coat, searching for a snow globe.

"North Pole," he told it gruffly before tossing it just ahead of them. The moment the portal opened water started gushing in full-force. "Quickly!" North bellowed, using all of his strength to get them all through.

"Thank you!" Tooth called back over her shoulder at the mermaids, who waved before heading on their way.

 

* * *

 

The Globe Room needed more than a little mopping by the time the portal closed. There was almost enough water to make a wading pool. The elves, who were clearly confused by the development, were enjoying it nonetheless, splashing themselves and each other.

The Guardians ignored them and the water, focussing instead on finding a way to get Jack out of the cage.

"Bring me saw to cut through bars!" North ordered the closest yeti, who garbled something in reply before hurrying off.

The yeti was back in moments, a large circular saw in hand. North didn't waste a moment, powering it up and telling the others to step back as he began slicing through the bars. While he was occupied, Tooth turned her gaze to the ice thing that had followed them through. The water they were standing in was doing nothing to help keep it in one piece and she had a feeling Jack would want to salvage it if he could, so she walked over to it, her wings too wet to fly.

"Come on," she coaxed it. "Let's get you outside where you won't melt."

The ice sculpture was reluctant to leave but eventually she somehow managed to convince it to follow her out of the Workshop.

As the third bar was successfully removed, Bunny launched forwards, ducking beneath North and his saw to reach Jack who had yet to stir.

"C'mon, Frostbite, wake up," he muttered anxiously, gently shaking the kid's shoulder.

"Is he breathing?" Tooth gasped, hurrying back into the room with Sandy who had just arrived.

Bunny held his ears to attention, watching Jack's chest carefully. "I… I don't think so," he managed.

"Hurry, we take him to first aid yetis," North announced, easily lifting Jack into his arms and storming through the halls of his home.

 

* * *

 

Jack awoke to white. It was a cold white, so he assumed he was in the snow somewhere, but that only served to make him more confused. Hadn't he been in the ocean a moment ago? His whole body felt heavy like that time he'd gotten sick with pneumonia, and if he were to take a guess, he would say that he was recovering from something similar. But that didn't explain the scenery change.

What Jack really wanted to do was sit up and take in his surroundings but he had a feeling if he did that he would regret it. So instead he opted for slowly turning his head to the left. The movement attracted the attention of a snowy lump beside him and an icy blob poked out of the slush like a daisy. Jack frowned in confusion for a long moment, staring at it, before his sluggish thoughts caught up with him.

"Frostwind?" his voice croaked from dryness and disuse.

The ice dragon (who currently looked more like a deformed ice blob, if truth be told) responded to the name, making a quiet huffing noise in conjunction with the wind which blew gently on him in relief.

"Jack?"

Jack let his eyes move away from his creation to where he assumed the voice was coming from but the owner was out of his line of sight.

"Bunny?" he guessed, withholding a wince at how pathetic he sounded.

"Yeah, it's me," the Pooka shifted so that he was on Jack's other side and within the winter spirit's view. His fur was covered in frost and he looked a little more than cold but he said nothing about it.

"Where are we?" Jack forced himself to ask, although he had his suspicions.

"North Pole," Bunny replied. "After we… after we found ya we brought ya back 'ere."

"Oh."

"You… you gave us a real scare for a while there, mate."

"How long… have I been asleep?"

"About a week 'n a half."

Jack stared at him a moment before shutting his eyes and letting his head fall back.

"You alright, mate?"

If he were to answer truthfully it would be an easy 'no'. He felt like he'd been through hell and back and merely thinking about the drowning experience made him queasy and start shivering again, though not from the cold. He forced his mind not to dwell on those things. The snow he was lying in was doing wonders to heal him and with time he would heal. He was just going to avoid all bodies of unfrozen water for a while. A year sounded good.

"I will be," he said in the end, if only to appease Bunny. Blindly he reached out a hand until he found the lump of ice he was looking for. "I'm glad you're okay, Frostwind," he told the dragon quietly. "When I no longer feel like I'm going to hurl I'll fix you up, okay?"

Frostwind huffed reassuringly, resting what was left of its head on the winter spirit's chest.

"Looks like ya managed that ice magic, hey?" Bunny muttered, watching the ice dragon carefully.

Jack hummed. "He looks better when he has definable features."

"Get some rest, Frostbite," Bunny stood, brushing some of the ice from his fur. "I'll let the others know ya woke up; they've been workin' themselves into a tizzy these last coupl'o weeks."

 _I'm sure that includes you_ , Jack thought, but he didn't have the energy to voice it. Instead, he rested his hand over Frostwind's neck and let the sound of the wind block out all else except the soft crunch of rabbit feet on snow.


	63. A Matter of Balance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And to Akeri la malicieusse I present your request for North-Jack bonding :3 I hope you like it!
> 
> Disclaimer: Don't own

Jack stared at the shiny blue bicycle sitting contentedly against the wall. He'd seen kids and adults alike ride the things all over the place, but he'd never been able to give it a go. They hadn't had bikes when he was human. The key to riding, he knew, was balance and, figuring he had a pretty good grasp on that, decided it might be worth having a try.

He stretched out one hand towards the bike, but was stopped in his tracks by a much larger and furrier hand grabbing his wrist. Jack sighed and looked up at the yeti.

"Let me guess, 'this bike is for a kid so I'm not allowed to play with it', right?"

The yeti nodded, releasing him.

"Alright, fine, I get it." That didn't mean he wasn't disappointed, though. "I'll go play with the elves, then." And by 'play' he meant 'lead them on their destruction rampage'. He was pretty sure the yeti understood the true meaning, too, if the look on its face was anything to go by. Jack decided to slink off before it got any ideas about stopping him.

He hadn't even managed to find a single elf before someone tapped him on the shoulder and, spinning around, he realised it was the same yeti from before. Jack huffed.

"Okay, okay, I _won't_ go play with the elves," he rolled his eyes.

The yeti warbled something and held out an old, faded red unicycle. Jack stared at it for a long minute, not really comprehending what was going on. The yeti sighed in exasperation before shoving the unicycle into Jack's chest, forcing him to grab onto it.

"It's… for me?"

A nod.

Well, it wasn't a bike, but he hadn't ridden a unicycle before, either. And if he was honest this one looked more fun.

"Thanks," he smiled up at the larger being.

The yeti said something in return and headed back towards the main part of the Workshop. Once he was gone, Jack turned his focus to the unicycle.

It came as little surprise to him that he had almost no trouble riding it; if he could perch on the tip of his staff without any support he could sit on a seat of a one-wheeled bike. Within minutes he was zooming down the halls with his staff in hand, making him feel a bit like a tight-rope walker… err wheeler?

"Hey, North!" he called out in greeting as he narrowly avoided running into the man as he passed North's office.

"Jack?!" North bellowed back, eyebrow raised.

Jack slowed to a stop, turned around and headed back.

"I did not know you could ride unicycle," North noted, sounding a little surprised.

"It's all just a matter of balance," Jack replied, easily staying upright even though he'd stopped moving.

"Ah, is understandable, then."

"Considering this is probably yours, shouldn't it be me surprised that _you_ can ride one?"

"Unfortunately I do not share your sense of balance, my friend."

"Wait… you can't ride?"

"Nyet."

"Not even a bicycle?"

"Not even bicycle."

Jack hopped off the unicycle and, with a flourish, offered it to the older spirit. "Then I'll help you learn!"

"I don't know," North said uncomfortably, scratching the back of his head. "Has been long time since I last tried and I am not as young as I used to be."

"Oh, come on, North! What's the point in having it if you're never going to learn?"

"I give to you," North waved at him flippantly.

"Oh no, you're not getting out of this," he smirked, grabbing North's arm and dragging him forwards (well, tried to drag). "Here, you can use the wall to keep you upright and I'll make sure you don't fall, okay?"

North sighed in resignation. "Fine."

It was hard enough getting the man onto the seat and as soon as he did manage it, the wheel rolled forwards and he slipped off again. It took five attempts at getting on, one of which resulted in Jack having to make a wall of ice to stop the man from falling flat on his back, before North threw his arms up in defeat.

"I cannot do this," he groaned.

"Well, why don't we try a bicycle instead? I hear they're supposed to be easier."

"Do we have to?"

"Yup!" Jack replied cheerfully. "You have one we can use?"

North shook his head wearily. "There is one in storeroom."

"I'll be right back!" Jack declared, shooting off down the hallway with the aid of a small gust of wind.

He returned in mere moments, speeding along on a bike that he had apparently already mastered.

"Here, put this on," he said, throwing the Cossack a helmet. "Safety first, and all that."

North looked like he really didn't want to be doing this, but complied, fastening the straps under his chin.

"Fine, fine, let's just get this over with," he sighed, taking the handlebars and mounting the bike. One foot on the floor prevented him from falling sideways.

"Okay, now you just have to pedal and steer with the handlebars," Jack explained.

North took his foot off the ground, placed it on the pedal, and promptly fell sideways onto the floor.

"Umm…" Jack frowned, helping the larger man back upright. "I don't think you're balanced."

North gave him a look that said 'no, really?'.

"Maybe if you try kicking off first? Here, I'll even hold the seat so it doesn't fall."

That seemed to do it. With Jack making sure North stayed balanced, they managed to get him to move slowly through the hall towards the Globe Room.

"Ha! I'm doing it!" North cried in triumph.

"You sure are," Jack grinned, subtly letting go.

North made it halfway around the room before he noticed, spotting Jack watching him proudly. An expression of shock overtook the joy from a moment ago and he lost balance, crashing into a table.

"You let go!" North accused when Jack hurried over to help him.

"And you were managing just fine on your own," Jack pointed out.

"I was," North agreed, apparently forgetting about the 'betrayal'. "Did you see? I was riding bike! Let's try again!"

By the end of an hour North was able to make his slow and slightly shaky way around on his own, Jack following alongside on the unicycle with his staff ready, prepared to stop North from falling if he made any sign of doing so.

"And to think I have had bike for years and never learned!" North exclaimed, carefully navigating around a corner.

"Well now you know."

"Thank you for helping me, Jack," North smiled at him, but quickly returned his attention to the path ahead when the bike wobbled.

"You're welcome," Jack grinned. "Hey, race you to the Workshop!" and without further warning he shot off.

"Ah, hey! No fair! You are better than me!"

"Yeah, but I've only got one wheel!"


	64. Minions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BAM! Another update ;) Oh, and happy Australia Day to all my fellow Aussies out there :P
> 
> Another request from Akeri la malicieusse, this time for more Sandy. He deserves more love because he's amazing. It's just really hard to write him when he doesn't talk (there are only so many ways you can phrase the way he creates pictures from sand ^^;)
> 
> Disclaimer: Disclaimed.

The meeting was unproductive (as usual), no one really paying attention to the fact that there was _supposed_ to be a meeting at all anymore. Tooth was off talking a mile a minute to her fairies, Bunny was busy painting an egg he must have brought with him, and North was standing in the doorway talking to some yetis about production.

Jack's gaze drifted from one to the other until he heaved a sigh and plonked himself down beside Sandy, who had fallen asleep.

"Hey, Sandy," he said, nudging the short man with his elbow. Sandy blinked awake, smiling up at him. "Don't you think it's a little unfair?"

The Sandman followed his gaze, but obviously didn't catch on to what the younger Guardian was saying. "?"

"Think about it; Tooth's got her little helpers, Bunny's got those mini eggs and the sentinel eggs, and North's got yetis and elves. Heck, even the other seasonals have minions. All the while the two of us have to do all our work by ourselves."

Sandy's eyes widened in realisation before he frowned, nodding.

"I mean, I _know_ their jobs are more full-on than mine – they have a very limited deadline while I get a few months – but you've got the same deadline as Tooth, so why should you have to do it all by yourself?"

"What is problem?" North asked, retaking his seat at the table.

"Just trying to figure out why you guys get minions and we don't."

"Minions?" North echoed in confusion. "Oh, I get. But, you are both able to create things with your magic, no?"

Sandy let some golden dream sand pool into his hand, easily morphing it into a small butterfly and showed it to Jack.

"To be honest, I haven't had all that much luck with it," Jack smiled sheepishly.

Sandy frowned, the butterfly morphing into a dragon.

"Frostwind? He was a success, yeah, but I can't really get him to help me spread winter, you know? Not without blowing him up, that is."

Sandy suddenly smiled, 'ABC' and an apple appearing above him. Jack stared at the new images in confusion, trying to figure out what the little man was getting at.

"Wait, are you saying you want to teach me?"

The Sandman nodded happily.

"Really?"

Another nod.

 

* * *

 

Sandy didn't have a lot of free time, so Jack decided to join him on his rounds across the globe. As soon as he sent out enough streams of dream sand for the surrounding area, he turned and sat in front of Jack.

The golden man held up a finger in a 'watch and wait' gesture, forming a ball of dream sand in his hands. With deliberate slowness he let the sand shift into the form of a manta, roughly the size of a dinner plate. He then waved it off towards one of the houses, following after it on the cloud. Jack watched in interest as the manta seeped in through a window and exploded above a sleeping child's head. The sand floated downwards until it was drawn in by the child, creating the scene of a dream.

"So you're saying I could do something similar with ice? Like make things and send them out to spread snow from a distance?"

Sandy nodded encouragingly, waving in Jack's direction as if to encourage him to have a go.

"I generally have to start with a drawing," Jack admitted.

Sandy pointed to a window.

"Yeah, that'll work."

With a touch the window froze over with delicate fern patterns. Pausing a moment to decide on a shape, he started drawing an outline on the glass, much the same way he had for Jamie. It was an easy enough manner to pry the frost penguin from the glass and it happily glided and darted around them.

Sandy clapped enthusiastically, giving him a thumbs up, but Jack, while proud of his creation, didn't quite share the enthusiasm.

"I can do that, no problem," Jack told his companion. "But it's hardly enough to spread snow or anything." His point was proven when the penguin suddenly burst into a soft patter of snowflakes, barely enough to be noticed amidst the snow already on the ground.

Sandy tilted his head in confusion, the sand dragon reappearing.

"Frostwind would be too small, too; not to mention I had to completely encase him in an ice shell to stop him from exploding."

Sandy frowned in thought, tapping his chin. He personally didn't have that problem as the things he made from his sand usually only had to be enough for a small group of children at the most. But Jack was a seasonal spirit, tasked with bringing winter to whole hemispheres at a time. Judging from Jack's method of creating them, it would take too much time and effort to make one big enough, and–

Sandy's eyes lit up as an idea struck him. He knelt down in the snow and pushed a pile of it together, making a very poor looking snow figure. He created a picture of a window covered in frost and crossed it out, then pointed at the snow he had been fiddling with.

"I should… use snow instead?"

A nod in the affirmative.

"I guess I could try."

Sandy gestured with his hands for Jack to try and compact as much snow into the creation as he could, that way it would allow for it to carry more snow.

"I still don't think it would be enough, though," Jack sighed, tracing the outline of an owl in the snow. It was harder to make the image three dimensional from the snow than it had been from frost, but in the end he'd managed it, although a few bits here and there had fallen away. The owl wasn't as compact as he would have liked, but it certainly held more snow than the frost penguin had.

At his urging, it soared skywards twirling about majestically before exploding, sending a heavier snowfall than its predecessor. But he would still need heaps of them if he was going to use them to help with winter and the amount of energy that would require would leave him unable to do his own work.

"Well, it's an improvement," Jack sighed, stretching. "I'll just have to keep practicing, I guess."

Sandy nodded reassuringly, trying to tell the winter spirit that it was a skill that came with time; the others had had centuries upon centuries to perfect the art, whereas Jack had only just started learning.

"Still though…" Jack smirked conspiratorially, "I think I have an idea."

As Jack shared his plan, the Sandman's expression slowly shifted to match.

 

* * *

 

North, Tooth and Bunny chatted amongst themselves as they waited for their final two members to show up. It wasn't like Sandy to be late, so they quickly concluded that the two were together. Movement above them made them lift their gazes in time to see a small pod of frost dolphins drift in through Jack's Window, leaping happily around on imaginary waves. And was it just their imagination or were there traces of gold on them?

When the dolphins all suddenly popped like balloons, dropping a light dusting of ice and gold, the only one who was bothered by it was Bunny, and even then only because 'it was cold enough outside without that blighter's help' and 'he was just trying to be a bloody show pony'. When they felt their eyes grow heavy and started to nod off to sleep, none of them would realise it was because of the dream sand interwoven with the snow until they woke up much later. And it would take even longer still for them to realise their faces had been drawn on in a black marker while they slept.


	65. Rumour Has It...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a request from NorthernMage who wondered what would happen if the Guardians did actually meet Slender Man (references to At War Part I)
> 
> Also, heads up for spoilers if you haven't played the game and wanted to (all my knowledge comes from Wikipedia cause I'm a huge chicken :P Apologies if anything is wrong)
> 
> Disclaimer: Don't own RotG or Slender Man

"Remind me again why we're traipsing through a forest at night," Jack said as he followed alongside the other Guardians.

"Weren't ya payin' attention in the meeting at all?" Bunny asked, looking back over his shoulder at the winter spirit.

"If I said I was would you believe me?"

Bunny snorted and returned his attention to the path ahead.

"There's been a report of kids disappearing in this area," Tooth informed him, shining her torch between the trees.

"And rumour of spirit said to be living in this forest," North added.

"U-huh," Jack nodded. "And we're doing this in the dark because…?"

Sandy created an image of what appeared to be a vampire burning in the sunlight.

"The spirit's a vampire?" Jack raised a brow, his words a little choked.

Sandy shook his head with a frown.

"What he's tryin' to say is that the only mentions of the spirit we're lookin' for have been about nocturnal activity."

"Right…" Jack drawled, lazily lighting up a nearby cluster of shrubs and trees with his torch. Of course it was something that went bump in the night. How cliché.

"Hold up, guys," Tooth called out, holding out a hand to stop them. "I think I found something."

Jack easily navigated over to her, peering over her shoulder at a piece of paper she'd picked up. His breath caught as he took in the ' _Can't run_ ' scrawled messily across it.

"What do you think it means?" North asked from Tooth's other side, a hand on his chin.

Sandy, likewise, looked confused, but the moment Bunny put eyes on it he turned to glare at their youngest.

"Not me this time!" Jack said instantly, hands held up in surrender. "Which means we are in a _lot_ of trouble and you have just sealed the deal, missy," he added to Tooth.

She, North and Sandy still didn't appear to understand. Bunny scanned the area nervously, ears on full alert, although his expression was partially confused.

"What deal?" Tooth asked.

"The paper things – there're eight of them – are like items in a scavenger hunt," Jack explained. "Each one you find increases the difficulty level of the game. The goal is to find all eight before _he_ finds _you_."

"He?" North raised a brow at the same time Sand made a question mark.

"Any chance 'he' is Hans?" Bunny asked, tone unreadable.

"Worse," Jack grimaced.

"How could it be worse than a bloody werewolf?"

"Well, Hans wasn't actually out to get you. And, you know, is friends with Lleu."

"…And this guy isn't."

"Absolutely not."

"You still haven't told us who, exactly, 'he' is," Tooth pointed out.

"Slender Man; that's what they call him."

"They?" North cut across.

"Yeah, the humans that play the game. I thought that was all it was; an internet thing turned game that mostly teens like to play. I didn't think he was actually real!"

"Belief is a powerful thing, my friend."

"Can anyone else hear that stomping noise?" Tooth whispered.

"Oh no," Jack cursed, switching off his torch. "We need to stick together and keep moving. Everyone turn off your torches except for one."

Sandy created another question mark as he did as asked, drifting alongside Jack as he hurried through the forest.

"In the game, the torch batteries don't last very long if you leave it on for ages. This way we'll be able to have at least one on permanently."

"So how do we win the game?" Bunny caught up to him. "Get all the pages?"

Jack smiled grimly. It was a look none of them liked.

"What?" Bunny asked in a tone of dread.

"You can't actually… win," he sighed. "Even if you manage to get all the pages, Slender Man still gets you."

"What?!"

"So what are we supposed to do?" Tooth gazed around nervously, the torch in her hand flickering about.

"That is the million dollar question, isn't…" Jack trailed off in thought. Sandy watched him quizzically.

"If we have to, we fight!" North announced, brandishing one of his swords. "We are Guardians and we protect the children. If this Slender Man is a threat to them, we will act accordingly!"

Bunny bit back the retort on the tip of his tongue. If this 'game' was anything like the one Jack had set up in his Warren, they were in for a time of it. "At any rate," he said instead, "we're not gonna get anywhere standin' about. Not collectin' the pages is just as bad as collectin' them, but findin' 'em will give us somethin' to do at the very least."

The others nodded in agreement and started walking again in no particular direction.

"Do any of you have any money?" Jack asked after a moment's silence.

"Sorry, Sweet Tooth, I don't have any pockets and all my quarters are back at the Palace or with the girls," Tooth apologised.

Sandy shook his head, no, trying to figure out what the winter spirit was thinking.

North patted his coat. "Nyet, sorry."

"Don't have any," Bunny shrugged, turning to Jack suspiciously. "What do ya want money for anyway? Not like there're any stores or anythin' out here."

"Never mind," Jack said, not making eye contact. He was frowning like he was trying to work through some complicated puzzle.

Bunny wasn't satisfied with that answer but didn't push the matter.

They found a second page before long, Tooth carefully pulling it down from the tree and placing it with the one they'd found earlier and they headed off again. The torch light flickered and died.

"I thought these were new batteries," she said, slapping the tool against her hand in hopes of getting it to work again.

"Is no matter," North waved a hand flippantly. "We have plenty of torches."

At his word Sandy turned on his own and scanned the darkness. The light travelled over trees, shrubs, a figure in a suit, more trees… wait! He hurriedly returned the beam to where the figure had been, but whatever it had been was gone now.

"Did you guys see that?" Tooth asked fearfully, her hand gripping Sandy's shoulder as he nodded; it wasn't just him, then.

"This isn't good," Jack murmured. He pressed his thumb and forefinger to his lips and let out a long, low whistle, disturbing the silence. The sound seemed to echo through the forest, carried by the wind.

"You tryin' to give away our position, mate?!" Bunny hissed.

"Because he totally doesn't know where we are already," Jack rolled his eyes, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

Bunny muttered something under his breath.

"I think the fog is getting thicker," North noted.

"Probably," Jack bit his lip, eyes trained on what little they could see of the sky. His face split into a huge grin when a low moan like the wind reached them, preceding an icy figure descending from the sky. "Hey, Frostwind!" the winter spirit greeted his creation.

Frostwind landed gracefully before him, nudging him happily with his snout.

"I need you to do me a favour."

Frostwind huffed excitedly, eager to be of use.

"Tooth, can you pass me one of those pages?" Jack asked the only female in their group. Bemused, she did so. "Any of you got anything to write with?"

Bunny scrunched his nose, reluctantly passing him a paintbrush.

"Got any paint to go with that?" Jack raised a brow.

Bunny rolled his eyes, handing over a small container of green paint.

"Cheers. C'mere," Jack gestured to the ice dragon. Frostwind obediently lowered himself so Jack could use him as a writing desk. "Okay," Jack rolled up the page once he was done. "I need you to take this to Jamie, got it?"

Frostwind took the paper gently in his mouth and, with a beat of his wings, took to the sky.

"Be quick!" Jack called up, watching as the dragon flew out of sight. He blinked at the others who were all just watching him silently. Wordlessly, Jack passed the brush and paint back to Bunny.

When he didn't elaborate on what had just happened, the others pushed the matter to the back of their minds and continued on, keeping their eyes open for any sign of their slender stalker.

It was Sandy who found the third page, initiating the low droning that accompanied the faster-paced stomping and thicker fog. None of them mentioned the change, but from the looks they exchanged it was clear they were all aware of it.

"This is too easy," Jack said quietly, a troubled frown settling on his features. And was it just him or was there piano music playing from nowhere?

"It's better than having Slender Man show up, though, right?" Tooth asked anxiously.

Jack looked up at her, ready to reply when he paused, eyes wide. "Duck!" he yelled, hefting up his staff and blasting a bolt of ice toward her.

Tooth gasped, dropping to the ground and sinking into a crouch, narrowly missing the jolt of magic. Hesitantly she glanced back over her shoulder.

But there was nothing there.

Jack cursed silently. "Gone," he managed. "I think we should walk in a circle; make sure no one's backs are unprotected."

Then Sandy's torch died.

Jack fumbled in his pocket, trying to grab his and switch it on as quickly as possible. North beat him to it, shining the light at each of them to make sure everyone was okay.

With a cry, Bunny flung a boomerang into the shadows. "He was right there," he ground out as he deftly caught the weapon on its return.

"Wouldn't surprise me," Jack sighed, running a hand through his hair. "We need to keep moving."

Slender Man didn't show his face (if you could call it that) for a long while after that, and they managed to find the fourth and fifth pages without too much hassle. The fog was now so thick they could barely see more than a few metres ahead, the torch was doing nothing to help things, and the wind had picked up (something Jack had adamantly told them wasn't his doing).

As they walked, Jack constantly checked the sky above, grumbling whenever he tripped over a rock or tree root. Walking in a circle with their backs towards each other had prevented any of them from getting sneaked up on but it meant there were always some walking backwards.

"We have not found a page for while now," North noted.

"Which is not a good thing," Jack replied, accurately guessing what the Cossack was thinking.

Sandy's golden exclamation mark and sand page alerted them to one he'd spotted a short distance through the trees and they awkwardly shuffled over to it. As soon as the short man pried it from the tree the piano music started up again.

Instantly on the alert, Jack held his staff defensively, straining his eyes against the dark for a sign of their stalker.

North's torch died.

"Man those things have the best timing," Jack said sarcastically, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his own in one fluid movement. A second comment cut itself off in his throat, morphing into a cry of shock as he flashed the light right onto Slender Man who was standing by a tree not five metres away.

He felt the others start to drop formation and hastily called out, "No! Hold position!" But that one second he'd looked away had allowed Slender Man to vanish again. The piano music continued on, slowly getting louder.

"Can anyone see anything?" he hissed.

A chorus of whispered 'no's returned to him. This was really bad.

"Come out and fight like man!" North yelled, drawing both his swords.

"Not his style," Jack muttered, tightening his grip on his staff and the torch.

Their circle was finally broken by North, who apparently spotted something between the trees and charged. Jack repressed a sigh; once a warrior, always a warrior, after all. Just as it wasn't Slender Man's style to face them head-on, so it wasn't North's _not_ to.

Bunny was the next to move, leaping forward and flinging egg-bombs and boomerangs at the shadows. Sandy and Tooth entered the fray simultaneously, brandishing dream sand and brute force respectively. Never let it be said that either of them were pushovers. Jack had seen Sandy in action and Tooth was more than a formidable force when provoked.

But even as he watched them he knew they were wasting their time; Slender Man would avoid a frontal confrontation. They had to wait for him to come to them. And oh, there he was right behind him.

Jack jumped back with a startled gasp, trying not to look directly at the faceless creep but still keep him within his peripheral vision. Before Slender Man had the chance to vanish again, Jack sent out a blast of ice from his staff. But that brief moment of inability to see his assailant gave said assailant the opportunity to disappear.

Jack cursed, staff still held at the ready as he scanned in hopes of relocating Slender Man before he decided to try again. But as the minutes ticked by, it was clear he wasn't coming back. For a little while, at the very least.

"Let's keep going," Jack said edgily, rejoining the others who had seemed to have come to the same conclusion as him.

"How many pages do we have left to find?" North asked, not bother to sheath his swords as they walked.

"We have six," Tooth said quietly. "Including the one Frostwind took."

"So that leaves two more," Bunny finished. "What happens if we find 'em all?"

"You get a few seconds of blissful peace before Slender Man appears behind you and ends the game," Jack sighed.

"Then we'd best not find them too quickly," North replied.

"But not too slowly, either. Take too long and it's game over, as well."

"Wonderful," Bunny grumbled.

They continued on in silence, all hyper-aware of their surroundings; of every snap of a twig and every rustle of leaves. The forest was unnaturally silent, which probably had something to do with it being the home of Slender Man, except for the wind, the droning and the stomping that bled into the background.

"Page six," North commented as Sandy pulled the note from its tree. "Only one to go."

"If we even get that far," Jack whispered. The other Guardians turned to him to see he was staring wide-eyed into the distance, torch pointed deliberately.

Slender Man was watching them through the trees.

Bunny rose to his full height, ears deliberately erect to make him look more intimidating. "Listen here, you bloody stalker," he snapped, jabbing forwards with a boomerang as if hoping to somehow poke him in the chest with it. "You leave those kids alone and we'll consider not beatin' on ya too badly, got it?"

Jack resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Don't stare at him directly if you don't want to die," he said instead.

One of Bunny's ears twitched towards him.

"All we want is to protect the children," Tooth took over, infinitely better at negotiating. "If you leave them alone we'll go."

Jack looked skywards as a new sound joined the wind already billowing around them.

Slender Man either didn't hear or chose to ignore their attempts at peace-making. Sandy shifted uneasily but paused as he caught sight of Jack, who had wandered away from the group.

"Oi, we're talkin'–"

"Let me handle this," Jack interrupted the Pooka, pushing through the group towards their adversary. They all stopped to stare at him. "Hey, Slendy," Jack greeted the creepy dude, an easy but somewhat nervous grin on his face. "Here," he held out a bunch of notes and, holding his breath, boldly shoved them into a pocket of Slender Man's suit, "Here's twenty dollars. Go buy yourself something nice."

Being this close to Slender Man was horrible. Jack's whole body was on high-alert, ready to fight or fly at a moment's notice. But Slender Man just stood there, watching even without a face. Jack blinked, and in that split second Slender Man was gone.

Jack took a shaky breath and turned back to his friends. "I can't believe that worked," he breathed.

"What just happened?" Tooth asked, wide eyed.

"There's this rumour that if you give Slender Man twenty dollars he'll leave you alone," Jack shrugged, making his way back over to them. "Remind me to pay Jamie back." Frostwind met him halfway, playfully head-butting him. The other stared at the dragon, apparently not having realised he'd returned. Except for Sandy, who didn't seem all that surprised.

"But we didn't solve issue with children," North voiced.

"Well, if we can get the kids to carry around twenty dollars with them at all times, it should be okay, right?" Jack replied from where he was absently stroking his ice dragon's frozen snout.

Sandy nodded, conveying that he would do what he could.

"Great. Can we leave now? This forest gives me the heebie-jeebies."

"You and me both, mate," Bunny said, opening a tunnel. For once North didn't complain, willingly jumping down so they could get back to the Pole as fast as possible.

* * *


	66. Empathy for a Frozen Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another update! Woo!
> 
> Alrighty, this is at the request of SonYukiGoku'sSister, who read my mind about the Pitch thing. This is only a beginning - but a change like this isn't something that happens quickly or overnight. So it'll be working progress :P
> 
> On a side note, I went and made a change to Mother Nature's description in chapter 15 (Mother's Day - which I'm pretty sure is the only chapter I described her in) to make her resemble the actual Mother Nature who is canon in the book series. (At the time I didn't even know there was a canon MN)
> 
> Disclaimer: Don't own

Jack bit back a sigh as he stared up at the moon from the branch he was lying on. It felt like so long ago now that he'd become a Guardian, and yet the memory was still fresh in his mind. And alongside those memories was the thought that whispered if Pitch hadn't felt the need to strike back, he would still be alone. He'd taken to smothering that voice whenever it felt the need to comment.

But alongside that voice came another one; one that made him wonder what would have happened if Pitch _hadn't_ gone crazy (well, craz _ier_ ). Because whether he liked it or not, he and the Boogieman weren't so different. They both knew what it was like to be alone, unseen and unable to reach out. And Jack could somehow tell that what Pitch had said down in Antarctica hadn't been the manipulative lies he liked to spill _;_ they had been the truth _._ He really _had_ longed for a family and really _did_ want Jack to be that family.

So, did that mean that if he'd stayed alone – continued to be ignored and neglected – that he too would have ended up like that? How must it feel to be so alone and unwanted that you felt like you had to attack and degrade others just to make yourself feel better.

Jack was unnerved because it could have been _him_. _He_ could have been the one to finally snap and attack the very beings who had neglected him; the precious chosen ones of the same moon who had abandoned him for so long. It could have been _him_. And that was more than a little hard to swallow.

Unbidden, Jack knew he pitied the Boogieman; empathised with him. No one deserved to be alone. Not even Pitch.

"What am I doing?" Jack groaned, pushing himself to his feet and jumping from the branch, letting the wind pick him up and carry him across the sky.

The entrance to Pitch's lair had closed after the events of that fateful Easter, but on his travels, delivering fun and snow, Jack had found it again; identified easily by the rotting bed over its entrance. The new entrance he had used a few times already; mostly to prank the shadow man. This time, it would be for something different.

"Thanks, wind," he whispered as his ever present companion deposited him by the hole. It seemed so… innocuous. It was easy to forget that this spot would lead to someone so malicious.

Biting his lip, Jack held his staff close and stepped forwards, freefalling down into the lair of the Boogieman.

The lair was just as dark and creepy as it had always been. Long shadows stretched across the walls and floors and Jack subconsciously held his staff close and defensively in case of anything that might suddenly decide to jump out at him.

So far no Nightmares or even Pitch had come to greet him, though he doubted it was because they weren't aware of his presence. Maybe he'd gone out somewhere and was just taking a while to get back? Either way he wasn't going to let his guard down.

"Frost?"

Despite being prepared for a confrontation, the sudden voice still made him flinch and he spun around, easily spotting Pitch standing in the shadows on the other side of the room.

"Surprised to see me?" Jack smirked.

"If you're referring to seeing you above water, then no," Pitch sneered, stalking casually, yet carefully towards him. "I was… alerted to that particular failing."

"And if I was referring to right now?"

"Well, I'd be lying if I said I'd been expecting you."

Jack let himself feel a little smug at that.

"The real question is what are you doing here?" Pitch continued, fading into the shadows.

"I came to talk," Jack replied, trying to figure out where the Nightmare King would show up next.

"Did you, now?" the words seemed to echo all around the chamber, coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once.

"Yes. So would you mind winding up the creepy show and face me?"

"Well, since you asked so nicely," Pitch's voice called from behind him.

Jack spun for what felt like the umpteenth time. Pitch was leaning lazily against the wall, but the wary, yet predatory look in his eyes told a different story. In a show of confidence and, albeit reluctant, trust, Jack lowered his staff. Pitch narrowed his eyes.

"No games, no lies, no tricks," Jack told him. "Just talk."

"What on Earth could the two of us have to talk about?" Pitch asked, his tone mocking but his gaze suspicious.

"You said it yourself; we understand each other better than I think either of us would care to admit."

Pitch stood to his full height, on alert. "The Guardians finally get tired of their new pet?" he sneered.

Jack forced himself to look away as he walked through the chamber, deliberately ignoring the comment. The iron Globe of Belief standing on display with its lights was the only colour in the room (besides him and his hoodie, of course). He stopped before it, feeling Pitch's gaze on his back.

"The truth is you don't have to be alone any more than I did."

"Oh really?" it was easy to tell from the Boogieman's tone that he was getting irritated. "Then care to explain why I've been driven to living underground, to hiding under beds and scavenging what fear I can get without you and your precious Guardians fighting me like your personal punching bag?"

Jack tilted his head to the side, glancing slightly over his shoulder. Pitch hadn't moved from his spot. "Hiding under beds is your thing, though, isn't it? That and closets – they're the darkest places in a room at night; what better place for you to sneak up on them from?" He returned his attention to the lights. "Fear isn't something that needs to be eradicated."

"Have you told this to the Guardians?" Pitch asked venomously. "I highly doubt they'd agree."

"Then they're wrong."

Three little words. And suddenly Pitch found himself without any. Jack stepped back to face the man.

"Fear is important, especially for kids. You're just too ambitious. Instead of trying to make the world a place where only fear and darkness exists, you should help the kids with it. Fear keeps them from doing things that could hurt them; it's what stops them from running out onto the road, or climbing a tree that's too tall, or getting into a car with strangers, or… or going onto a frozen lake before checking how thick the ice is."

Pitch's face was unreadable, but he wasn't rebuking what he was saying and didn't look like he was going to attack, so Jack took the opportunity to continue.

"This," he waved a hand at the Globe, "is proof that you can be so much more than what you're limiting yourself to. All Guardians have a Globe of Belief," in proof he pulled his own from around his neck. "So I think that means you were at least offered the chance to be one."

Pitch's emotionless face snapped to anger. "I am not one of those do-gooder–"

"I used to think the same thing," Jack cut across. "I'm not like them – I don't work to short deadlines and my work is more fun than hard. Not to mention back then there wasn't even a single person who could see me. But because of you I realised something. I realised that just because I'm not like them, doesn't mean I'm not a Guardian." He paused. "A Guardian is someone who protects kids, who only wants the best for them, and no matter what your centre is, as long as you strive for that you're doing a good job. Success is relative."

"I couldn't care less about those brats!" Pitch snapped, something more than irritation colouring his tone.

"I said no lies," Jack raised a brow. "That whole 'take over the world thing' was because you wanted kids to believe in you. But you don't have to take away all the good things to achieve that. You can use fear to _create_ those good things. How do you think courage is born? Or bravery? It's by overcoming fear."

He took slow, deliberate steps towards the Boogieman.

"At the Tooth Palace you said you didn't want to be hated. So why don't you become someone who helps them grow? All you have to do is tone it down on the nightmares, and only let them fear the things that truly deserve to be."

He stopped barely metres away from the man he had once considered an enemy.

"You can still be a Guardian. You can still have a family."

The somewhat longing look in Pitch's eyes vanished and his face screwed up in anger. "Get out!" he snapped, sending a blast of nightmare sand at the younger spirit. "You don't understand anything!"

They both froze at the words, identical to the ones Jack had yelled in a similar situation what felt like a millennia ago.

"But I do," Jack whispered. "And I'm offering you the chance to understand, too. We _can_ make them believe," he raised a hand in gesture for a handshake. "But the world doesn't have to be pitch black. It's enough for you to just be a part of it. Let me help you like you helped me."

Pitch stared at the proffered hand for a long moment before he curled his lip and battered it away, slipping into the shadows.

"I don't need your help and I don't want your pity," his voice echoed. "You have twenty seconds to get out before I set my Nightmares on you."

"I'm not giving up on you, Pitch," Jack told him, relenting and heading back towards the entrance. "Just… just think about it." With one final look at the Boogieman's lair he let the wind pick him up and carry him back to the surface.


	67. Jokul Frosti

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is short and absolutely did not go the way I was expecting it to. Sorry SonYukiGoku'sSister ^^;
> 
> Disclaimer: Don't Own
> 
> Jokul Frosti info came from http://esoterx.com/2012/12/15/ho-ho-horrible-feeling-frosty-with-jokul-frosti-ded-moroz-and-yuki-onna/

"I am not a frost giant!"

The Guardians looked over at their youngest member as a collective unit, distracted from their argument (North and Bunny), work (Tooth) and dozing (Sandy). Jack was staring angrily down at a book they hadn't noticed he'd had. Feeling their gazes lingering on him, he looked up.

"I'm not violent, right?" he asked, his expression vulnerable.

"Only when you want to be," Bunny replied with a raised brow.

"But I'm not evil… I'm not evil, right?"

"Of course not," Tooth reassured him, sharing a worried glance with the others. "Why would you even ask that?"

Jack sighed, but if there was any specific emotion behind it, it was lost on them. He hefted up the book so they could get a good look at it.

"Norse mythology?" North frowned, not really understanding the link between Jack's outburst and the topic in question.

"I was interested to know where all those 'Jack Frost nipping at your nose' sayings came from, since nobody could see me," Jack explained. "I was talking to Jamie about it and he leant me this book… Turns out 'Jack Frost' is a modernisation of 'Jokul Frosti'; a Viking frost giant who was 'the evil and violent foe of both men and gods'."

Sandy created an image of a giant-like being and then a silhouette of Jack beside it, crossing out the former.

"Sandy's right," Bunny agreed. "'Sides, you're too scrawny to be a giant. Not to mention you wouldn't even beat me in a fight let alone the gods."

"Excuse me?" Jack put the book down heavily on the table as he got to his feet. "First of all, I'm not scrawny. I'm svelte. Secondly, in case you forgot, it was _me_ who took out a huge portion of Pitch's army after Sandy… during that Easter debacle."

"You think you can take me on, Frostbite?" Bunny smirked.

Jack, completely forgetting about what had brought on this conversation in the first place, matched Bunny's smile. "Is that a challenge, Kangaroo?"

"Guys, please don't fight," Tooth huffed.

"Alright, then. But ground rules: no magic. You can use ya staff so long as you don't use your ice."

"Go somewhere else," North told them. "Don't want mess in Workshop." Tooth looked at him in shock for not helping break them up.

"The Warren, then?" Jack suggested.

"Fine by me," Bunny nodded.

"Oh it is on like Donkey Kong," Jack grinned.

"Like what now?"


	68. To Beat a Bunny (Winter vs. Spring)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So FFN is being a meanie and won't let me access my account, so I'm posting here for now and I'll get back over there when it decides to play nice (at least this way you guys won't miss out)  
> This took me waaaay longer to write than I'd have liked (sorry). Fighting scenes are haaard *groans* So I hope it's up to scratch!

Perhaps getting into a fight with the Easter Bunny hadn’t been his smartest decision ever, Jack pondered as he and Bunny circled each other in an open field of the Warren. It wasn’t that he wasn’t good at hand-to-hand combat – especially since he was allowed the use of his staff; he had his own style, like a mix of free-running and kendo – Bunny was just much larger and stronger than he was. Not to mention Bunny knew pretty much every type of physical combat out there. He’d probably invented most of them.  
  
But it wasn’t like it was impossible for him to beat the Pooka, either. There were multiple times in history where speed and agility won out over strength. But Bunny was equal parts strength _and_ speed. It would be an interesting match, to say the least.  
  
Despite her earlier worries and protests, Tooth was watching from the sidelines with North and Sandy, anxiously wringing her hands as she followed their movements with her eyes.  
  
So far neither of them had made a move against the other and Jack knew the importance of getting it right; the first move could mean your victory or equally your downfall, depending on how it was executed. But if he wanted a chance at victory, he would have to seize the opportunity if it presented itself.  
  
Apparently Bunny had been thinking along similar lines for he suddenly charged forwards. Jack reacted quickly, dropping down onto his haunches to dodge the blow and whacking the rabbit in the shins with his staff. It wasn’t a strong enough blow to knock Bunny off balance but it would have hurt.  
  
This fight, he knew, would be a matter of stamina; who could hold out the longest. Because Jack would be dependent on wearing Bunny down with lots of small hits, he had to hope he could outmatch Bunny in terms of perseverance. Thankfully, 300 years of parkour and nimbleness were at his disposal.  
  
After landing the blow, Jack didn’t wait around. Springing forwards, he moved to face Bunny’s back and, using his staff for balance, launched himself up in a high kick. But Bunny’s reflexes were just as good as his own. In the blink of an eye he had turned around, dodged the blow and grabbed Jack’s ankle in one of his paws.  
  
Jack’s eyes widened at the development and he flipped himself around in the air until the Pooka’s arm twisted far enough that he was forced to let go. Jack jabbed the end of his staff against Bunny’s forehead for good measure before quickly put some distance between them.  
  
They started circling again.  
  
This time it was Jack who initiated conflict, darting around to the left until the last possible moment when he suddenly switched trajectory, using his staff like a pole-vaulter and launching himself up and over Bunny’s head, using him like a spring board. The Pooka staggered forwards a few steps before collecting himself and striking out in a back kick. Jack brought his staff up to block the blow, feeling the power of the contact vibrating through the aged wood and into his arms. What he wouldn’t give to be able to freeze the kangaroo’s foot right then. But, alas, rules were rules.  
  
In one fluid movement, Jack loosened his grip on his staff, letting his hands slide down the length of the shaft until he was holding it nearly on the hook. Then, spinning it between his fingers, he hooked the end onto Bunny’s ankle and flicked upwards with all the strength he could muster.  
  
Having only been standing on one leg, Bunny was unprepared for the sudden shift in his balance and stumbled sideways. Jack followed through with a middle roundhouse to knock him over completely.  
  
Unfortunately, Bunny didn’t stay down. When Jack moved in to pin him, he rolled backwards, using both feet to kick out at Jack’s chest and toss him back. While the winter spirit tried to regain his footing Bunny jumped forwards, dropping down low and kicking the kid’s feet out from under him.  
  
Jack landed on his back with a loud ‘oof’. Bunny quickly pinned him down and held an elbow to his neck.  
  
“Surrender?” he smirked.  
  
Jack sighed in defeat, avoiding eye contact by tilting his head to the side. When he finally did look up at him, Bunny only had a split second to recognise the glimmer in the kid’s eyes before he pounded a knee into Bunny’s gut and said, “Not on your life, Cottontail.”  
  
While Bunny doubled over at the unexpected blow, Jack nimbly rolled away and scooped up his staff from where he’d dropped it as he got back to his feet.  
  
Bunny couldn’t help but smirk as he straightened once more, sizing up his opponent. The kid wasn’t half bad, he’d give him that. But this was far from over and like hell he was going to let himself be beaten by a neophyte.  
  
When Jack made to strike out with his staff, Bunny grabbed the shaft in both paws. He spared only a moment to smirk at the surprised look on Jack’s face before he shifted to the side and flung the stick – and by extension Jack – over his shoulder and slammed him down into the grass a second time. Jack was much faster to react this time, however, and dodge rolled backwards, coming to rest on his feet, before Bunny could pin him again.  
  
“You’ll have to do better than that, rabbit,” Jack taunted.  
  
Bunny barely grunted in reply and drew one of his boomerangs. “This more to your liking?” he grinned, twirling the weapon like a baton.  
  
“Now things are getting interesting.”  
  
Bunny launched the boomerang, which Jack easily blocked – not that he’d expected anything different. The distraction served its purpose. Dropping to all fours, the Pooka closed the distance between himself and his opponent and rolled to deliver an axe kick.  
  
Jack, seeing the impending attack, darted to the side, narrowly avoiding the blow. Jumping up, he struck downwards with the butt of his staff, hitting the rabbit in the square of his chest before expertly balancing on the hook like an acrobat in a circus. Purely for showing off purposes, of course.  
  
“Do _you_ surrender?” he teased.  
  
“When it’s so easy to do this?” Bunny replied, knocking the staff and its boy off of him. Jack easily recovered, landing on his feet. “I don’t think so, mate.”  
  
Jack just laughed and started running laps around him like some kind of sugar-high shark. Bunny supposed it was a tactic to try and make him dizzy (either that or to stay out of range long enough to find an opening), but with hearing like his, all he had to do was stand still. He did, however, subtly scoop up his fallen boomerang and toss it while the kid was distracted.  
  
Jack must have gotten tired of all that running around because suddenly he was right behind him, using his staff for extra height as he jumped up to likely kick him in the back of the head. Bunny didn’t even bother to move.  
  
The boomerang clanged loudly as it struck Jack in the side of the head, knocking him off course and into a heap on the grass. Bunny quickly pulled Jack’s arms behind his back and pressed one large foot between his shoulder blades.  
  
“That was mean,” Jack groaned.  
  
“I didn’t hit ya that hard,” Bunny rolled his eyes. “You surrender?”  
  
“Yeah, yeah, you win,” Jack huffed. “Can I have my arms back now? This position isn’t exactly comfortable.”  
  
Bunny snorted but let go, offering a paw to help him up. “Not bad, Frostbite. But you’re still half a millennia too early to beat me. Don’t take it personally; winter always gives way to spring, after all.”  
  
Jack grinned despite his loss, stretching his shoulders. “Well, don’t expect me to go around calling you master or sensei. And like hell I’m going to say spring is better.”  
  
“You know,” Bunny told him as they watched the others wander over (only Tooth looking worried), “if we’d used magic, ya prob’ly would’ve damn near beaten me. Possibly would have.”  
  
“I’ll keep that in mind.”  
  
“Sweet Tooth, are you okay?!” Tooth gasped when she finally reached him, instantly switching to mother-hen mode and checking him over for injuries (and making sure his teeth were as unmarred and perfect as ever).  
  
“Relax, Tooth, I’m fine,” Jack reassured her. “Might have a few bruises, though,” he looked meaningfully at the Easter Guardian.  
  
“You and me both, mate,” Bunny snorted, stretching out his back. “For someone so scrawny you put up a decent fight.”  
  
“Was very good fight,” North beamed. “And Jack, a bit of training and you’ll go very far.”  
  
Sandy nodded in agreement.  
  
“Come, we go back to Pole for hot chocolate; cold chocolate for you, though,” he winked at Jack.  
  
“Sounds good.” Then, just to tick of Bunny, “Let’s take the sleigh.”  
  
“Excellent idea!” North crowed at the same time a horrified Bunny said, “Not on your nelly.”  
  
They took the sleigh.


	69. Reminiscent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Request from SonYukiGoku'sSister. Please excuse the fact that I'm making stuff up ^^; (I haven't read the books)

Jack groaned as he let his head fall onto the open book in front of him. They'd been there for hours, searching the huge tomes for some kind of passage or other that North mentioned having spotted once upon a time, believing it would help him with his frost creations. Excited though he was about the prospect of improving, there was only so long he could sit in one place. And it certainly didn't help that they'd found nothing so far.

"It will be in here somewhere," North encouraged from the opposite side of the table, flicking through the pages of his own book. "We just have to keep searching."

"We're going to get through every single book in this place at this rate," Jack replied, gesturing with an arm towards the countless shelves and their contents without looking up.

"You are too impatient. The journey is half the fun, no?"

"Yeah, for things like road trips," Jack replied, leaning back in his chair. "This is a bit different."

North smiled to himself, remembering a time that felt so long ago now when he had been the same; always so impatient to get things done. "You know, Jack, you remind me a lot of myself when I was apprentice," he told the winter spirit.

"You were an apprentice?" Jack raised a brow.

"Oh yes, to a great wizard called Ombric. I always liked to get things done quickly, too, but Ombric told me that patience is a great virtue that we should strive for –is very easy to overlook important details when you are rushing."

Jack sighed. "I know… but it's so boring!"

"Is very boring," North agreed, making Jack pause.

"Can't we get the elves to look?" Jack asked slowly.

"Nyet," North shook his head. "They will just end up ruining books and building towers."

Jack's face fell. Though watching the construction might be amusing.

"But there may be another way…"

The winter spirit's head shot up, a hopeful expression on his face. "Which would be…?"

"Come, we go find spell book," North beckoned, rising from his seat.

Jack was grinning now, hurriedly complying. Magic would be way more fun than sifting through page after page by hand. "You have a spell book?!"

"Of course! Is very big collection built up over many centuries; there are books here you could not find anywhere else!"

Jack didn't doubt it. "So hey, you think I could learn magic?"

"Is possible; but let us first work on finding passage in book, no?"

 

* * *

 

Phil the yeti bustled into the library, clipboard in hand, in search of North. He needed to get the latest bunch of new prototypes approved before they could make more. The sight that greeted him, though, made him pause.

The library was a mess, to understate. Books were stacked in piles that should have been unbalanced and crashed to the floor, some particularly heavy tomes were drifting lazily through the air alongside some tables and chairs, and several books that weren't defying gravity were open with their pages flying at a mile a minute. Seated in the centre of it all was the very man he was looking for, as well as a certain winter spirit. A magic book was set out in front of them and they were both laughing at the scene playing out around them.

Phil quietly backed up and shut the door, heading back to the Workshop. The approval, he decided, could wait.


	70. Love and Attraction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kay, so remember when I said 'no romance'? Well, that still stands ;) Happy Valentine's Day xx

Jack stumbled as he came in to land in the Globe Room, enticing the attention of the other Guardians who had been waiting for him. There was a small frown on his face – not that the others could really tell – as he moved his head as if gazing around the place.

"Hmm… judging from the fact that it was sub-zero a second ago and it's not anymore, plus the added subtle heat of a fireplace, I'm going to take a stab and say I'm in the Globe Room," he said after a moment's silence.

"You couldn't see that for yaself?" Bunny quirked a brow.

Jack turned in his general direction, allowing them to see the scrap of cloth tied across his eyes. "Blindfold's'll do that to you," he smirked.

"Jack, why are you wearing blindfold?" North asked in confusion.

"So there I was, minding my own business, enjoying the last few weeks of winter," Jack began in the tone of a story teller as he started pacing around, using his staff like a cane, "when BAM! Cupid comes out of nowhere, tells me I'm 'ruining his holiday' because I'm not making goo-goo eyes at anyone and embarrassing myself, then proceeds to stab me with one of his stupid arrows."

The Guardians exchanged glances. Sandy made to ask about the blindfold – Jack actually hadn't answered their question – before realising Jack wouldn't be able to see it.

"What does that have to do with the blindfold?" Tooth asked for him.

"I'm wearing it because the first person I see I'm going to – unwillingly – fall 'hopelessly in love with'," he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "The wind's been taking me where I need to go, so I assume I'm here cause the lights went off?"

"Ya, but was only routine meeting; nothing serious," North replied.

"Okay. I have something I'd like to discuss, then."

"And what might that be?" Bunny crossed his arms, having a very good idea despite his question.

"How long does it take for a love arrow to wear off?"

"No idea."

"Fantastic." And there would be no way to know for sure while the blindfold was still on. "I am going to ice Cupid's wings solid when this is over." A pause. "Then bury his arrows in Siberia."

"Well," North told him, pretending (much like the others) that he hadn't heard that comment, "you are welcome to stay here for as long as you need."

"Thanks, North," Jack smiled where he thought North was standing (but was in actuality a chair). "There wasn't anything important I needed to do, right wind?"

The wind blew in gently from the open window, ruffling his hair reassuringly.

"Shall we start meeting then?" North suggested, moving to sit by the fire. The other Guardians (sans Jack) followed.

Jack tracked their movement with his ears, turning his head in their general direction. He'd made it all the way to the Pole without incident (although he had only the wind to thank for that) so he was pretty sure he could manage to find a seat without killing himself.

Or, at least, he'd _thought_ he could.

Jack misjudged his position in relation to the Globe of Belief, his foot catching on the corner of the console. With a flail and a short cry he fell forward. His staff hooked onto the edge of the blindfold, flinging it off as he face-planted spectacularly.

"Sweet Tooth! Are you okay?!" Tooth's somewhat frantic voice called out to him.

"Fine," he groaned, holding a hand to his head as he pushed himself up onto his knees. He didn't realise his protective barrier against the world was gone until he found himself staring at his reflection in the polished metal of the console. "Never better," he said, his voice lilting to a tone the others couldn't quite identify. "Although… anyone got a comb?"

The others exchanged a wary glance.

"And maybe a better mirror? Not that I really need one; I look great in every reflective surface."

"You sure you're feelin' alright, mate?" Bunny asked.

"I'd reply to that by asking if I look alright but we all know that's true already," Jack smirked.

"He must've hit his head," the Pooka told his companions.

Tooth hurried to help Jack back to his feet. "You didn't hit your head, did you?" she asked worriedly. "What about your teeth? Are they okay?" She shamelessly shoved open his mouth to check and sighed with relief. "Still as beautiful as always."

"Thank you, Tooth," Jack beamed at her, causing some of the fairies nearby to swoon. "They are beautiful, aren't they? Unlike a certain somebody's…" he glanced meaningfully at Bunny.

While Bunny spluttered, Jack waltzed over to the nearest reflective surface and started meticulously fixing his hair.

"There's no bruising, so I don't think he hurt himself," Tooth said, watching the winter spirit work.

"Which do you think is my best side?" he asked them, turning to and fro. "The left or the right? I mean, I know they're _all_ fabulous, but is there one that's a little more fabulous than the others?"

"In that case, can I give him a reason to've gone off his rocker?"

"Bunny!" North scolded, but the smile on his face took the bite out of it.

Sandy examined the console where Jack had slipped, picking up the fallen blindfold as he did so. His eyes widened in realisation and he created a large exclamation mark to attract the others' attention.

"You think you know something, Sandy?"

Sandy nodded, creating what looked to be a picture in a frame.

"I don't get it," Bunny frowned.

"A mirror?" Tooth guessed.

Another nod.

"Oh! You think he saw his reflection and Cupid's magic is causing this?"

Two thumbs up.

"Well, that would explain behaviour," North shrugged.

"So how long until it wears off?" Bunny turned to the larger man, glancing briefly at Jack who was still staring longingly at himself.

"I do not know."

"Wonderful. If you'll excuse me, I've got eggs to paint," and with that he promptly disappeared down a hole.

"I can't believe he just ditched us!" Tooth gaped.

"He doesn't know what true beauty is," Jack informed them without looking away from his reflection. "Such a shame."

The three remaining just stared at him.

"Maybe we should look for Cupid," North suggested. "Jack, where were you when you ran into Cupid?"

Jack barely glanced at him. "I was spreading snow over Burgess."

"Then that is where we go. To the sleigh!" he bellowed, marching out of the room.

"Whoa, wait, what?" Jack gaped, hurrying after him. "You want _me_ to go on the sleigh? Do you have any idea what that kind of wind-sweep will do to my hair?! What if we hit a swarm of bugs?! They _don't make good face masks_ , I'll have you know!"

Sandy and Tooth rolled their eyes, heaved twin sighs and made to catch up. It was going to be a long day.

 

* * *

 

Surprisingly, Cupid was still hanging around; perched on a roof and surveying the couples going about their day in satisfaction.

"You!" Jack cried, pointing at the spirit accusingly. The wind gently lifted him up and deposited him on the roof beside Cupid. "Because of you, not only is there a small red mark on my beautiful body but my hair is now a mess and I don't have a comb!"

Cupid, who was essentially a young chubby boy with angel wings, stared at him. "You're right, that is a tragedy! Here, let me fix that for you; how can you possibly hope to be attractive with hair like a bird's nest?" he reached up and expertly rearranged Jack's hair.

The other Guardians, who had finally caught up, didn't really know how to react.

"You could also try a more fashionable outfit," Cupid suggested. "I mean, the 18th century and the 20th are both good in their own rights, but you really shouldn't mix them."

"Excuse me," Jack huffed, "but it doesn't matter what I wear; I can pull off any outfit."

"Okay, this has gone far enough," Tooth interrupted. "Cupid, we came to ask you to remove the effects of your arrow on Jack."

"You want me to… to _remove love_ on _Valentine's Day?!_ " Cupid whispered in horror. "No. Uh-uh. Absolutely not."

"This is not love you were intending," North reasoned.

Cupid shrugged. "Love is love; narcissistic or not." He turned to Jack. "Just make sure you don't end up drowning yourself like Narcissus did."

Jack winced.

Sandy mimed checking his watch, then made a question mark.

"How long?" Cupid guessed. "Well, I should think the effects will wear off by midnight."

"I suddenly feel like Cinderella," Jack muttered. "So long as I don't have to wear rags and ride in an enchanted pumpkin, that's fine."

"Then we're all good, then. Now if you'll excuse me, there's a timid young couple in the next town over who require my assistance," Cupid farewelled, flying off.

"Okay, well, I'm gonna go spread some snow so perfect they'll still be thinking about it when spring comes," Jack said casually, heading off as well.

"Should we really be letting him go off alone?" Tooth asked nervously.

"Bah, he will be fine," North reassured her.

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because he has caught sight of reflection," he pointed down at where Jack was admiring himself in the window of a bakery. "He will probably stand there until sunset."

Tooth bit her lip, but nodded. "And after sunset?"

"I will send out lights and get him to Pole, yes? We set up big mirror to keep him occupied."

Sandy shook his head in amusement, drifting up into the air. With a wave to his friends he went off to resume dream-delivery. Tooth was quick to follow.

"Bah, Valentine's Day," North muttered to himself as he headed back to the sleigh. "Such a silly holiday. Nowhere near as important as Christmas."


	71. Familiar Symptoms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To Beverly-sempai, from your kohai, Arc-chan (and me :P) A very happy birthday to you, and please eat cake on the behalf of the rest of us XD
> 
> This one was shorter than I realised...
> 
> Disclaimed.

Jack idly wondered whether or not Bunny knew he was wandering around in the Warren unsupervised. Like most of his visits, he'd simply been flying over Australia, bringing the cold winds to blow those last few leaves from the trees, and had decided to pop in for a chat. Although this particular instance turned out to be less chat and more explore.

The Warren was, in a word, huge. There were so many tunnels and secret spots that Jack was sure it would take him years to thoroughly inspect every nook and cranny. But he would never finish if he didn't even start.

The path he was following opened out into a little grove, ringed with vividly coloured flowers and shrubs. Butterflies, bees and varies other pollinating insects hung around like the place was their own personal club. Which, being where he was, Jack wouldn't have found all too surprising.

"Never seen flowers like these before," he mused, tilting his head at the red upwards pointing petals on a small shrub.

Some of the flowers – older and decayed a little – had settled on the ground around the base of the plant. Figuring he wouldn't get in trouble for touching something that was already dead, Jack reached down and picked it up. The edges frosted slightly upon contact.

"Oi! Get your frosty butt away from there!"

Jack turned casually at the sound of Bunny's voice to see the Pooka in question storming over to him.

"Hey, Bunny," he greeted, not startled in the least.

Bunny didn't waste time with idle chatter, grabbing him by the hoodie and bodily hauling him away from the plants.

"Whoa, hey, what's the big deal?" Jack protested, though he didn't put up a struggle.

"I don't want ya to kill 'em by lowering the temperature too much," Bunny replied gruffly. "Those plants are all extinct in the wild topside."

"Oh," Jack blinked, looking down at the flower still in his hand as he idly scratched at an itch in his eye.

"Yes, oh."

"That's pretty cool, actually."

"Well, I'd prefer it if it didn't get 'cool', if ya catch my drift."

"Right, sorry, stay away from the plants. Got it," Jack smiled sheepishly. And then he sneezed. The force of it completely froze the flower he was holding. And obliterated it.

Jack stared at the remains of the flower. Bunny stared at him. Silence reigned.

"I guess it's a good thing I wasn't standing by the actual bush," Jack said after a moment. "I didn't even know I could do that."

"That makes two of us… Just don't do it again."

"Yeah, cause I can totally control my body's reflex actions," Jack deadpanned. "And- ACHOO!"

Bunny stepped backwards, startled by the sudden sound. Jack groaned and wiped his nose.

"Sorry," Jack apologised, rubbing at his eye again.

"Ya gettin' sick, mate?" Bunny frowned.

"Don't think so. My nose is just itchy all of a sudden. You have a tissue?"

"I might," Bunny scrutinised him for a moment longer before heading back down the path towards the little hut/burrow thing, Jack on his heels.

"Sorry, mate," Bunny said after a few minutes of searching. "You can just use a leaf or somethin'."

Jack scrunched his nose at the prospect. He'd rather go without, to be honest. All the rubbing he'd been doing was starting to make his eyes water and it certainly wasn't doing anything to help with the itch. To make matters worse he could hardly see anymore.

"Your eye's gone red," Bunny pointed out, inadvertently adding another symptom.

"Probably cause I keep scratching it," Jack sighed, continuing to do so.

"Then stop."

"But it's so _itchy_!"

"You're only makin' it worse."

"I don't even know what's wrong with it," Jack groaned. "The last time anything like this happened, I was…" All expression slipped from his face. Bunny watched warily.

"You were what?"

"I hate spring," the winter spirit said monotonously.

Bunny looked like he was holding back a rather large build-up of rage. He probably was. "Look, Frostbite, if ya hate it so much why do ya even bother comin' here?"

"I come here to ann- to see you. Besides, that's not what I meant."

Bunny raised a brow.

"It's hay fever," Jack told him. "The last time I had hay fever was before I became a spirit. I'm normally nowhere near pollinating flowers, so it's never really been a problem. I guess I just forgot about it."

"Come on," Bunny said after a moment, his anger apparently having dissipated as he led Jack outside. "You can wash that eye out in the stream."

Half blind, Jack followed.

"Um, can you do it?" Jack asked awkwardly upon arriving at the stream in question. "If I touch it, it'll probably freeze in my hand."

"You could always just dunk your whole head in," Bunny suggested.

Jack gave him a meaningful glare.

"Yeah, yeah," Bunny rolled his eyes, dipping his paw into the water. "Head back. And don't blink."

Jack did as he was told, fighting his body's natural instinct to flinch away from the water being dribbled onto his eye. Most of it managed to reach its destination, but the rest dripped down the side of his face, freezing into tiny rivers on the way.

"Ow!" Jack suddenly cried, holding a hand up to the problem eye.

"What?" Bunny asked, surprised by the sudden outburst.

"I think the water just froze in my eye!"

"Well… at least ya don't have hay fever anymore, right?"

"I fail to see how this is a better alternative."

"Think of it this way; now you're less likely to blow up my Warren."

"Nice to know where your priorities lie," Jack huffed sarcastically. "I don't even know if this is going to thaw!"

"Could always get a fire spirit to poke ya."

"Yes, because having my eye incinerated is such a better option."

"What about steam, then? Less likely to burn ya but still get the job done."

Jack heaved a heavy sigh. "Worth a shot, I guess."

"I'll go boil some water."


	72. The Many Faces of Tooth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I must once again apologise for things not going the way I'd planned (sorry, SonYuki - I don't think it's very obvious what we were trying to get at...). But I like this one anyway :P
> 
> Disclaimed

Jack smirked as he downed another glass of (non-alcoholic) eggnog, never once breaking eye contact with the small golden man on the other side of the table. Sandy matched his expression with an easy smile, happily sipping away at his own drink, never once falling behind. Jack was 80% sure the Sandman didn't actually have a stomach. He had a black hole. Or a garbage shoot. Maybe a portal to another dimension that was fed by the vast quantities of eggnog he drank. Who knew?

The elves standing on the sidelines passed Jack another glass and he gulped it down just as quickly as the last. How many had it been now? Seven? Maybe eight? He looked to the referee (an elf they'd found playing with a whistle). The 'elferee' held up both hands before looking confusedly down at them and adding a bunch of toes as well. Twelve. Not a bad score.

Except Sandy was on thirteen.

The Sandman gave him a knowing look that clearly read 'you can't beat me and we both know it', but Jack wasn't going to go down without a fight. He drank another glass.

By the time the score was an even twenty, Jack was starting to feel a bit queasy. Sandy snickered at the slightly sick look on the winter spirit's face, completely fine.

"You… are impossible," Jack told him, pointing.

Sandy smirked victoriously.

"Oh, no," Jack shook his head, taking another glass from the elves. "This isn't over yet."

"Oh, Jack, there you- are you okay?" Tooth asked, fluttering over to them, something glinting gold in her hand. "You look a bit pale… Well, paler than usual."

Jack forced himself to drink every drop of the eggnog in his hand as he turned to her. "I'm fine."

Sandy helpfully provided an image of someone getting kicked in the rear-end.

"You are not!" Jack frowned.

"What are you doing?" Tooth watched in bewilderment as Sandy grabbed another glass and leisurely took a sip.

"Drinking contest. We're trying to see who can drink the most eggnog."

Tooth blinked and let her gaze travel between the two who were still competing. "How many have you had?" she asked carefully.

The number twenty three appeared in gold sand above Sandy's head.

"And you?" she asked Jack.

"Twenty-" another glass, "four."

"You've had _twenty four glasses of eggnog?!"_

Sandy, completely immune to the horror she was expressing, finished another glass.

Jack groaned as he half-heartedly reached for another. He really wasn't feeling so good anymore. "Twenty five." When Sandy easily had another Jack glared at him. _Curse me and my stubborn pride_ , he thought as he snatched up yet another glass.

Even the look of the seasonal beverage was enough to make his stomach churn now. He was pretty sure by the end of it he would never want to drink eggnog again. He managed to take all of one sip before he slammed the glass down and plonked his head down on the table.

"Sweet Tooth, are you okay?!" Tooth asked worriedly.

"I never want to drink eggnog again," Jack groaned. "You win, Sandy."

Sandy did a victory dance in his chair.

"Sandy!" Tooth snapped, quickly grabbing the short man's attention. "What were you thinking?! You know no one's immune to eggnog like you are!"

Sandy had the decency to look sheepish, but the glint in his eyes gave away his triumph.

"And now poor Jack's got a stomach ache, and–" Tooth cut herself off, switching targets and quickly transforming from mama bear to mother hen in less than a second. "You poor thing, you have a stomach ache, don't you?"

Jack just groaned.

"North might have something, but you'll probably just have to sleep it off," she said sadly, rubbing soothing circles on his back. "Maybe Sandy could knock you out for a while," she punctuated her words by glaring meaningfully at the spirit in question, ignoring his attempts to tell her it had been Jack's idea in the first place.

"I hope all that eggnog doesn't damage your teeth; you'd better make sure you brush properly before you sleep," Tooth told him sternly, rolling his head to the side and shoving open his mouth. Jack weakly protested but let her obsess as she willed. He wouldn't have been able to stop her, anyway.

Sandy nudged her, getting her attention and she quickly pulled away, smiling in embarrassment. The Sandman shook his head fondly and conjured a ball of dream sand.

"Sounds good," Jack told him. "Knock me out for a while. Do me a favour and throw me in the snow, too?"

Sandy nodded.

"Thanks. Oh, Tooth?"

"What is it, Jack?"

"What brings you here? You sounded like you wanted to tell me something."

"Oh," Tooth looked down at the golden canister still in her hand. "I wanted to give you something. We were sorting through some old teeth canisters and, well, we found this one," she held it up so Jack could see the little brunette girl's face on the end. "I don't need it anymore, but I thought you might want to hang on to it."

Jack's eyes widened at the familiar portrait, stomach ache temporarily forgotten. He switched his gaze between the canister and the fairy holding it, mouth open but unable to form any words. "…How…?"

"I'm the Tooth Fairy, Jack. It's my job to know teeth," she smiled sadly. "Why don't we do this when you're feeling a little better?"

Jack nodded, looking to Sandy expectantly. The Sandman easily did his job, petting Jack's hair comfortingly as he drifted off into a dream of two children skating happily on a frozen lake.

"I'm still not happy with you," Tooth whispered sternly as she and Sandy transported Jack outside on a dream sand platform. "If there is even a speck of plaque on those teeth I will personally smother you in toothpaste."

Sandy held up his hands defensively. It wasn't often he was on the receiving end of an angry Tooth and he was starting to remember why he tried to avoid it.

When they were gone, the elves looked from the door they'd left through to the remaining eggnog, then at each other before going back to the eggnog. Two contestants moved into position and the elferee blew his whistle.


	73. In Which there is Cake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this isn't what we discussed, SonYuki, but I figured I might as well take the opportunity to throw in a few other things on my non-request list since it worked...
> 
> Uni starts again on Monday (D:) but yeah... chapters should still be reasonably frequent. Like, more than one per month. Depending on how busy I am. Actually, the busier I am the more I seem to write... (procrastinator is guilty ^^;)

"I'm sorry, I must be hearing things because there is no way you just said what I thought you said."

Mother Nature tilted her head as she looked up at the youngest of her 'children', one brow raised. She didn't speak any words, but her expression alone was enough to convey her point.

"What? But- No- How- _What?!_ " Jack gaped at her. This could not be happening. It was too… weird. And uncomfortable. And weird.

"It's true," Mother Nature confirmed, turning away from him and returning her attention to her gardening – exactly as he'd found her when he'd arrived. "But we're getting away from the point now."

Jack blinked, forcing his mind to go back to the actual point of this conversation. "Look, you don't have anything to apologise for," he told her. "It wasn't you, after all. Besides, if it hadn't been for that whole 'incident' then things would be very different for me. And not in a good way."

Mother Nature sighed, letting her hands fall into her lap. "I know, and yet somehow part of me cannot help but feel as though I am obligated to take part of the blame for what has happened, at the very least I feel partly responsible. And while I agree with you that previous events have indeed turned out for the best, that does not change the fact that further problems – while resolved – did arise."

"I was hoping to be able to change that," Jack admitted, feeling inexplicably foolish. "He can't be all bad, right?"

"No," Mother Nature agreed, rising to her feet to face him. "He was a good man once, very different to the one he is now. He is not solely to blame for all that has happened."

"So you think… that there's a chance? I mean, that I can try to… I don't know, help him?"

"There is no way that I know of to restore him to the way he once was," Mother Nature said sadly. "Nor can I guarantee that you will succeed; I do not know him now like I did then. But perhaps you who has known at least some of what he feels can get through to him – not make him wholly good, as we both know is impossible, but maybe less evil." She placed a delicate hand on Jack's shoulder and looked him dead in the eye. "Promise me, Jack, that you will at least try. He may not be Kozmotis Pitchiner as I remember him, but he is still my father."

Jack tried not to snort at the name, sobered by the seriousness of their conversation. "I promise."

"Good," suddenly her whole demeanour changed. She stood to her full height, more relaxed and hardly as serious. "Would you like to come in for some cake?" she offered, gesturing to her home which stood not ten metres away. "Some of the sprites made it for me but I could hardly eat it all myself."

* * *

  


"Piiiiiiiitch?" Jack called, his voice echoing through the cavern-like room. He got no answer for his efforts, not even a Nightmare to chase him out. "Heeeeey?! Pitch?!"

When he still received no response, Jack shrugged and resorting to searching the creepy place one shadow at a time. The Nightmare King had to be around here somewhere. He let a smirk creep onto his face and stopped in front of the Globe of Belief.

"Pitchy-witchy~ I know you know I'm heeere~"

Something cold pressed against his neck.

"Call me that again and I will not hesitate to silence you permanently," Pitch's seething voice said from behind him.

Jack was instantly on high alert, knocking the scythe pressed against his neck away with his staff and swinging around to face the older spirit.

"What would you prefer?" he asked slyly, his mouth ignoring his brain's protests that this was probably a really stupid thing to say. His body, however, did have some common sense and stayed on the defensive. "I could call you Kozzy?"

Pitch's eyes narrowed. "That is not my name," he said darkly, his anger clearly rising.

"How about grandpa, then?"

Whatever seething retort Pitch had been about to utter slipped away from him, his jaw going slack as he looked down at Jack as though he was insane. "What?"

"You heard me."

The Boogieman made a noise that could have been anything from a growl to a sigh and, turning away, pressed a hand to his forehead. "If you have come to antagonise me I will happily return the favour in a much more violent way," he said, the threat clear in his tone. As if to back up his words, several Nightmares appeared from the shadows.

"Actually, I came to ask if you wanted some cake," Jack smiled, holding up a foil-wrapped package.

Pitch stared as if trying to figure out whether or not the winter spirit was being serious.

"Mother was very insistent that I take some for the road but I'm not going to need to eat again for at least a week and a half after the amount she practically forced down my throat. It'll probably go bad by then, soooo…."

Pitch abruptly turned away and stalked towards the shadows. "I thought I made it clear that you are not welcome here. And we are not in any way _friends,_ " he spat.

"The yetis made it clear I wasn't welcome at the Pole all those times I tried to break in but that didn't stop me. If they couldn't keep me away, do you really think you can?" The unspoken _'and I'm friends with them now'_ was ignored.

"The fur balls are likely far less inclined to slice you in half. Have you no sense of self-preservation?"

"Probably," Jack shrugged. "And we don't have to be friends. We are family, after all. In a weird, somewhat creepy, messed up way. So do you want the cake or not?"

If Jack were to take a guess at what Pitch was thinking merely from the expression on his face, it would be that he was mentally murdering him over and over. How pleasant.

"I'm not in the mood to deal with you," Pitch growled. He snapped his attention to some of the Nightmares. "Escort him out!"

Jack's eyes widened as the herd charged towards him, making no effort to be gentle as they bit at him and tried to drag him over to the entrance of the lair.

"Whoa, whoa," Jack protested, pulling away from them. "I _can_ walk." He was ignored.

Jack rolled his eyes with a sigh as he was promptly chased back to the surface, not bothering to freeze any of the horses or fight back; that wouldn't leave a very good impression on the guy he was trying to get on better terms with.

"There, I'm out, happy now?" he asked the Nightmare that followed him above ground.

The Nightmare snorted, pawing at the dirt. Then, without warning, it snatched the cake from Jack's hand and disappeared back into the dark recesses of the Pitch's lair. Jack couldn't restrain the snicker that escaped him as he called for the wind to pick him up.

"If you wanted the cake you could have just said so," he pointed out, not caring that the Boogieman probably couldn't hear him. "Remind me to bring more next time we come," he told the wind, letting it carry him home. "Maybe bribery is the key. We could do that thing – the psychological one; umm… conditioning or something."

The wind tussled his hair in a way that felt like laughter and reassurance all in one as it carried him across the sky.

"I wonder if I could condition the others…"


	74. The Winter Council

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As requested by Fenrir Wylde Razgriz. I'm sorry if it's weird or anything - I'm half asleep right now but I figured you were getting tired of waiting. Also my internet is so dodgy but I'm too tired to get angry. Only the second day back at uni and I'm already dead :I
> 
> Oh, IMPORTANT NOTE: I've decided to halt further requests for now (only temporary, I promise) until I can get through the 30-something already on the list and make it shorter. That way you guys won't have to wait months for me to get around to your requests. And since uni's back on and I'm busy with RL (alas!) I'm going to have less time to write so the wait will be longer :(
> 
> Disclaimer: Don't own.

"Cookies?" North offered once they were all seated, holding up a platter of (rather questionable) sweets. Jack promptly decided the elves had been at them and declined, much like the others.

"How are Christmas preparations going?" Tooth asked, setting the meeting into motion.

"Everything is on track," North replied happily, reclining back in his seat and munching away on a tree-shaped cookie. "Will be done in time like always."

"And you, Bunny? Have you started getting ready for Easter?"

"Nah, can't start 'til next month or the eggs'll go bad before I can get 'em out," Bunny informed her. Having such a short deadline put an unwanted amount of pressure on him, but it was nothing he couldn't handle.

"If you need help, Cottontail, I'd be glad to offer my services," Jack smirked. "Winter will be fine on its own for a little while."

"You stay away from my eggs, mate," Bunny warned.

Jack put up his hands in surrender.

"You guys are lucky," Tooth sighed, sharing a look with Sandy. "Sometimes I think it would be nice not to have to work all the time."

"Isn't it about time we organised another vacation?" North asked, agreeing with the Sandman's suggestion.

"Can it wait until after Easter?" Bunny replied with his own question. "That way Frostbite and I'll be on our off-seasons and you won't be quite so busy, either."

Sandy nodded along with Tooth. Before North could answer, though, a knock on the door made them all turn in time to see a yeti stick its head in and mutter something.

"A visitor?" North translator. "Who?"

More growls.

"For Jack?"

"Me?" Jack glanced between North and the yeti.

"Apparently you have visitor," the Cossack shrugged.

"Me?" Jack repeated, his face sceptical.

"Send them in!"

A short silence followed after the yeti obediently disappeared before the door opened fully and an older spirit with a frosted beard and serious eyes stepped in. His long robe dragged on the ground, the ice patches across the fabric glistening in the light.

Jack's eyes widened in shock and he hurried to stand up, banging his hip on the edge of the table in his haste. He was vaguely aware of the other Guardians' confusion but now was not the time for explanations.

"I see you are learning, Jack Frost," the man said, his face completely expressionless.

It was even more confusing for the others when he restrained himself from any kind of quip or comeback. Instead, he remained ramrod straight, eyes locked firmly with the stranger's in a show of respect and obedience. Bunny was half expecting him to salute.

"Forgive me," North said as he stood. "But who are you?"

Jack flinched but didn't look away.

"My apologies," the man half-bowed. "It was rude of me to barge into your home without so much as introducing myself. You see, I was looking for Jack here but he wasn't where I expected him to be." He looked meaningfully at the young winter spirit who appeared to be struggling to stay still. "In any case," he continued, "I am Old Man Winter."

There were several blank faces in the room at that. Sure, they'd all heard of Old Man Winter, but they'd thought Jack was the only winter spirit; that the name was just a variation. Even if Jack Frost wasn't old at all (in appearance, at least – and he was still young compared to the rest of them).

"Ah, I see," North was the first to recover. "Call me North. I'm sure you know of Bunnymund, Tooth and Sandy."

"I certainly do," Winter nodded. "I doubt there are any amongst the spirits of our world who are ignorant of the Guardians. And now I hear that Jack Frost has joined your ranks. I am honestly surprised."

Bunny frowned and opened his mouth to ask just what was so surprising but in a flash Jack was suddenly in front of him and covering his mouth with a chilled hand. Bunny grabbed his arm and pulled it away. "What are ya doin', mate?" he asked.

Jack shook his head ever so slightly, the movement barely visible. His eyes were wide and clearly displayed his nervousness.

"Jack," there was something threatening in the Old Man's tone and Jack flinched, wincing as he turned around to look back at their guest. "I believe Bunnymund asked you a question."

Jack seemed to shrink under the cold gaze and he turned his head back to Bunny, although his eyes focused on the ground. "I was stopping you from starting something you would regret," he said quietly.

"And why would he regret it?"

Jack cringed. "…Sorry."

"That is not what I asked, Jack."

"…I don't want to say," Jack sighed.

"Very well, I didn't come here to chit chat, after all," Old Man Winter abruptly changed the subject, much to Jack's surprise. "I am aware that it has already been some time since your appointment as a Guardian, but I wanted to personally congratulate you on your new position."

Jack did a very good impression of a fish.

"I also wanted to remind you that just because you now have new duties, does not mean you can forsake your old ones."

Jack frowned. "I haven't been–"

"Do not interrupt. Would you care to explain to me why you failed to show up to the court meeting and thereby forced me to personally come find you, wasting precious time that we both know we can't truly afford to spare?"

Jack blinked, but a mixture of realisation and horror slowly dawned on his face.

"I take it you forgot, judging by your expression."

"Oh man, how did I forget?!" Jack mumbled to himself. He really wanted to bang his head against a wall or something but that would probably do nothing to help with the situation. "Wait, but why did you come personally?"

Old Man Winter raised a brow.

"I mean," Jack quickly back-tracked, "why not send a Mini-Miser or something instead?"

The older spirit gave him a look that clearly read 'are you seriously asking me that?'. "Because I know that should anyone else have come, you would have continued to waste time. This way, we might actually get something done today. Now hurry up; the others are waiting." Old Man Winter then turned on his heel and marched back toward the door.

Jack watched him go for a minute before sighing and trudging after him.

"Whoa, whoa, hold on a tic," Bunny interrupted, holding up both paws. "Does someone wanna explain to the rest of us just what exactly's goin' on here?"

"I mean no disrespect, Mr. Bunnymund, but this is a matter for winter spirits and those associated with the season, and them alone."

Jack narrowed his eyes, "In a way," he said slowly, "North's a spirit associated with winter."

Old Man Winter stared at him silently for so long Jack was forced to look away in discomfort. After a time he heaved a sigh and said, "Very well then, but we do not have time to dilly-dally about with explanations. Come along if you must," he told the Guardians.

The others exchanged glances before shrugging and following.

"Wait, not all of them can fly," Jack pointed out.

"We will take sleigh!" North bellowed happily, ignoring Bunny's groan.

* * *

  


North hadn't really known what to expect, but in hindsight he probably should have guessed they'd go somewhere freezing. The ice castle was a bit of a surprise, though. Jack had ridden the sleigh with the rest of them while Old Man Winter flew ahead, but he had been oddly silent the whole time, his expression unreadable. It was very un-Jack-like behaviour and had the rest of them watching him from the corner of their eyes in concern.

The castle itself was an architectural marvel. There was so much detail carved into it and despite the material it was made from, it appeared completely sturdy. The two winter spirits in company had no qualms about entering it, at any rate. Bunny, on the other hand, was less than thrilled.

The interior was much the same as the exterior – ice as far as the eye could see. In fact, North was pretty sure the place didn't have anything within its walls that wasn't made from ice.

Old Man Winter led them down several slippery hallways (to the Guardians, at least – the two winter spirits didn't seem to be having any trouble at all) until they ended up in a large semi-circular room with a map of the Earth carved into the straight wall. Numerous spirits were milling about inside and all looked over to the doorway as they entered.

"Glad the two of you could join us," a woman with white hair tied back in a tight bun said with a raised brow. "And I see the Guardians have come too?"

"There wasn't time for explanations, apparently," Jack offered quietly.

The woman nodded, not making any further comment.

"Shall we get started, then?" Old Man Winter asked.

There was a general consensus of agreement and every winter spirit in attendance turned to stare at Jack, who shifted uneasily under the scrutiny. The Guardians just looked confused.

Heaving a sigh, Jack finally stood a bit straighter and glanced over at the map. "How far in are we now?"

"One week and two days," a broad man with a large beard supplied from the other side of the room.

"And progress?"

"We've each been aiding the season in our own areas predating today, so I would approximate around 5%," the woman from before replied.

"Right then, we have a lot to do," Jack said, moving to the front of the room. "Mother has given me a general brief, but for the most part it's going to be a pretty relaxed season." He turned to the man who'd answered his first question. "We're looking for about a maximum of fifteen inches of snow at any given time in your sector – not including mountains – but Mother said to organise a three-day blizzard in the middle of January and then another week-long one at the start of February. The rest is up to you. Can I count on you to do that, General Winter?"

"As always," General Winter nodded.

"Major General," Jack switched targets to a man similar in appearance to General Winter but with a shorter beard and a different style of uniform, "we need more ice than actual snow in Texas, but other than that there aren't really any expectations from Mother. I'm thinking no more than about 25 inches of snow in the lower regions, but you can go all out in the colder areas. Try not to ice up the roads too much without giving them a little warning first, though."

"As you say," the Major General agreed. "And what of the northern regions of Canada and Alaska? I was anticipating about 75 inches for Alaska and a maximum of 120 inches for Canada."

"Sound fine to me," Jack nodded. "Does anyone have any objections or suggestions?"

No one said anything.

"Alright then, moving on."

And so it went for each country on the map. The Guardians watched without really knowing how to react as Jack took on a more mature, leader-like demeanour. He was like a general organising his troops. The other spirits present were all older than him, but none of them questioned his leadership or judgment, even if they did at times look a little put out. Before an hour had passed he seemed to finish, slipping through the crowd towards them.

"I didn't know there was a whole court of winter spirits," Tooth smiled at him.

"I'm more surprised that you seem to be in charge," Bunny pointed out.

"Yeah, well, I wouldn't be if Old Man Winter didn't retire. When I came around he figured it would be a good opportunity to pass off all his duties to me. Honestly I hate the job," Jack sighed. "I'm always glad when it's over so I can go focus on the fun side of it."

"Wait, the guy's retired?"

"Yup. You'd never know it, huh? He seems to think I'm going to screw up if I don't have constant supervision."

"Well, I think you did excellent job," North told him, slapping him on the back with enough force to make him stumble.

Sandy frowned, signing something but what Jack had no idea.

"He is asking why you were acting so strangely back at Pole," North translated.

"Oh. You guys do not want to get Old Man Winter mad," Jack ran a tired hand down his face. "He'll freeze you with no hesitation and you'll be stuck like that until he decides otherwise."

"Jack!"

Jack turned to face the short man with the icicle for a cane that was hurrying towards him. "Snow-Miser? What's up?"

"I wanted to ask about the effects of climate change on the ice caps at the Poles," Snow-Miser said with a frown.

"Already taken care of," Jack reassured him. "I've been making sure to check it over and fix any damage when I'm down south between seasons. I can't fix it permanently, but it's not being neglected."

"And in the north?"

"I've been doing air surveillance whenever I head to the Workshop, but if you wanted to send some Mini-Misers to do a more detailed scan I would appreciate it."

"Consider it done," Snow-Miser smiled. "And greetings to you, Guardians," he bowed to them. "I had not expected to see you here."

"Neither had we, actually," Tooth admitted.

"If you'll excuse me, I must go speak with the Snow Queen about distribution in England. Jack, I heard the Old Man say something about pinning you with training some new Yuki Onna; you might want to leave before he spots you."

"Thanks for the tip," Jack smirked. "Definitely don't want to get stuck with that. You guys ready to go finish our own meeting?" he asked the Guardians.

"Yes," Bunny rubbed his arms in a futile attempt to keep warm. "It's bloody freezin' in here."

"Ice castle; of course it's freezing. It's ice," Jack fondly rolled his eyes and led them back out through the many hallways to where the sleigh was waiting.

"Who knew there were so many different winter spirits," North noted, sharing a silent conversation with Sandy.

"You probably would have if you weren't so busy all the time," Jack shrugged casually. "It's no big deal – the rest of them don't really care about being believed in; only in getting their jobs done. Whereas I'm more focused on the fun-side of winter rather than the work side."

"We know, mate," Bunny grumbled as he climbed into the sleigh after them. His paws were so numb he didn't think he'd even be able to open a tunnel let alone muster the energy to argue against the sleigh.

As they took off, Sandy created a group of people followed by a clock and a question mark.

"How long has there been a court?" Jack guessed. "Dunno; it was before my time. Apparently originally they all just went about their work, but they kept clashing and arguing and Mother Nature had her own opinion on things so Old Man Winter was appointed as 'the' spirit of winter and he organised the roles of all the others."

"And now that's you," Tooth concluded.

"Yup. It's not all bad, though. I can get away with a lot."

Bunny shook his head in exasperation. "Trust you to abuse your authority."

"Trust you to be a stuck-up kangaroo," Jack shot back with a smirk.

"If I wasn't tryin' not to throw up, I'd pummel ya, kid."

Jack just laughed. Bunny was slowly getting more accustomed to the sleigh, but no amount of travel would let him get over air-sickness. "You could try."


	75. A Change in the Wind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I HAVE BEEN REALLY EXCITED FOR THIS ONE, SHTTRD GLAS! It's also really long, and I'm debating whether or not to add a second part...
> 
> Also combined with a request from Shamangirl1 (but you'll probably have to imagine the butt-whooping ^^;)
> 
> Disclaimed.

It was a subtle thing; the kind that would normally go unnoticed had the noticer not been Jack Frost. As it was, the noticer was, in fact, Jack Frost, and so the subtle thing was noticed. A minor change in the way the wind 'spoke', the way it moved and felt, was all it was, but to Jack it may as well have been an announcement blared in his ear.

The winter spirit in question froze in midair, his journey to the more southern regions of the hemisphere temporarily forgotten as he took it all in, listening to the hushed whispers. Had it really been one hundred years?

A huge grin split his face as he confirmed that, yes, he had heard correctly. But while it was a moment of excitement and worth celebrating, it also meant he had a lot of work to do and not a lot of time in which to do it.

With barely a thought, Jack descended to the snowy landscape below and quickly began drawing shapes in the slush. With mere mental insistence he dragged the two-dimensional drawings into corporeality until he had numerous snow owls seated before him and watching him expectantly. He had gotten a lot better at creating things from snow and frost since North had aided him, inadvertently teaching him that it would be by far more effective to focus not on having the creations disperse into snow, but instead having them affect the local weather and coaxing snow from where it had already gathered and frozen in the clouds.

A short order saw all of the birds flying off, each in a different direction. Now, with winter covered, he could focus on more important things. Letting out a long whistle, Jack shot off into the sky, his trajectory north-east.

There was still a whole pile of things already in the temple from gatherings of centuries past, if he remembered correctly (although not all of it was his), but Jack couldn't help but want items more appropriate for the current century. Everything had to be perfect.

 

* * *

 

Jamie smiled to himself as he helped Sophie put the last rock into place on their joint-effort snow bunny (she had insisted). In his opinion, it didn't really look all that much like the Easter Bunny, but the little girl seemed proud of it, so he wouldn't mention it.

A chilling gust of wind swept through their backyard, enticing the two Bennett children's attention skyward, just in time to watch a familiar hoodie-clad spirit land nimbly on the fence.

"Jack!" Jamie beamed, always happy to see his favourite Guardian.

Sophie chanted his name as she raced over to him and Jack jumped down from his perch so she could hug him.

"Hey, kiddos!" the winter spirit greeted enthusiastically. If his smile had been any bigger his face probably would have split in two. It wasn't unusual to see such an expression on Jack's face, but it generally meant plotting of some kind. Thankfully, Jamie usually found himself on the dishing end, rather than the receiving one.

"Why are you so excited?" the eleven year old asked, just a touch suspicious.

"I just heard some really great news," Jack replied, his eyes straying to their snow-Bunny. A smirk grew on his face. "Nice snow Bunny. Should take a photo so I can show the real one… Or get him to come look for himself."

"Bunny!" Sophie cried excitedly.

"What kind of news?" Jamie brought them back on topic.

"Oh, right! It's a secret," he told the boy slyly. "But if you help me, I'll show you once everything's sorted."

Jamie raised a brow. "What do you need us to do?"

"I need to find the prettiest, shiniest things I possibly can."

"Okay…" Jamie said slowly. "Why?"

Before Jack had the chance to answer, a breathy roar echoed across the yard, preceding the arrival of an ice dragon. Jamie and Sophie watched it land with open awe, mouths agape and eyes wide.

"There you are," Jack said happily, patting the dragon on the nose. "We have work to do." He paused, glancing down at the kids. "Oh, right, Frostwind, these two are Jamie and Sophie. Jamie and Sophie, this is Frostwind."

"That is so cool," Jamie uttered.

Frostwind lowered his head so that he was at eye-level with the kids before jumping around them in excitement. Sophie squealed in delight and chased after him.

"Did you make him?" Jamie asked, watching the two run around.

"Yeah… long story. I can tell you later, but I don't have much time at the moment."

"Right, shiny things," Jamie acknowledged. "What kind of things were you looking for?"

"Anything, really," Jack shrugged.

"Well, we might have some stuff inside. Hey, Soph!"

Sophie stopped, half mounted on Frostwind's back.

"Can Jack borrow some of your dress-up stuff?"

Sophie stared at him for a long moment before abruptly forgetting about the dragon and racing inside. Jack and Jamie exchanged a bemused look and followed after her, being sure to tell Frostwind to stay put first. By the time they found her in her room, Sophie had pulled out everything in her costume box, completely covering the floor in an assortment of outfits from fairy dresses to superhero costumes. The little girl in question victoriously held up a plastic tiara and shoved it in Jack's face.

"It's perfect!" Jack exclaimed, examining it closely. "Would you mind if I borrowed this for a little while? I promise to bring it back at the end of next week."

"Jack can borrow," Sophie smiled.

"Thanks, kiddo."

Jamie raised a brow at the exchange, half expecting the winter spirit to try it on.

The three of them scavenged throughout the rest of the house, and by the end of their search, they'd managed to accumulate only a small number of things Jack could take that their mother wouldn't miss – an old CD, some tin foil, and a bunch of keys that unlocked goodness knew what. Jack seemed happy with the haul, though.

"I can keep an eye out for other stuff if you want," Jamie offered as Jack stashed the items in the pocket of his hoodie and the three of them stepped back out into the yard where Frostwind was waiting.

"Really? That's be great! I don't know how much spare time I'll get to come back myself, but I'll be sure to send Frostwind every now and again. If nothing else, he doesn't mind being buried in snow," Jack smirked, winking at them.

"I take it you have to leave now?"

"Sorry, kiddo," Jack smiled sadly. "But I'll catch you guys next week, alright?"

"You promise?"

"Promise."

 

* * *

 

Why, of all possible times, did North have to pick that very hour of that very day to hold a Guardian meeting? Jack could practically _feel_ the seconds ticking by as he tried to stay focused on what Bunny was saying (something about eggs or paint or whatever). But there were so many other, more important things he could be doing right then and he was finding it increasingly difficult to sit still and pay attention.

He gave up altogether, though, when a swarm of elves hurried in through the door and over to him.

"Yes!" he cheered, swinging around in his seat to face them properly. He was vaguely aware that Bunny had stopped talking and the other four were now staring at him. He didn't particularly care, though. "What did you find?"

One of the elves towards the front of the group triumphantly held up a piece of dollhouse furniture for him to see.

Jack resisted the urge to groan. "No, I said _shiny_ , not _tiny_. Did any of you actually listen?"

Another elf handed over a silver bell (much like the ones they had on the ends of their hat-outfits).

"Yes! Perfect!" Jack grinned. "See, _this_ is what I meant."

The elf looked around at its peers smugly.

"What about the rest of you? Christmas lights? Hmm… it's a good idea, but I'm not gonna have anywhere to plug them in. What else?"

"Um, Sweet Tooth?" Tooth hedged.

"No, Dingle, a bar of soap is not shiny," Jack rolled his eyes. "That is, though, good job, Tinsel!" he gratefully accepted the weird gem-thing the elf held up proudly.

"Jack?"

" _Please_ tell me you didn't take that from a reindeer," Jack winced as he spotted the horseshoe amongst the elves.

"Oi, Frostbite!"

Jack finally glanced up at the Guardians, raising a brow at their confused and somewhat concerned expressions. He suddenly remembered they had been in the middle of a meeting. "Oh, sorry. What were we talking about?" he swung back around to face them properly. "Bunny, you were saying something about eggs?"

The others didn't seem to think the meeting was quite as interesting as the display of elves and random, unrelated objects. Sandy frowned, making a question mark.

"Oh, well, you see– Frostwind! Perfect timing," Jack's attention was shot as his dragon drifted in through the window, an ice chest held carefully in his mouth. "What did you find?" Jack asked, leaving his seat in favour of examining the chest. "Coins, jewellery, a pocket watch, candy wrappers… this is a pretty good haul, good job."

Frostwind preened at the praise.

"Here, can you take these back for me?" Jack asked, placing the elves' collection in alongside the items already there. "You remember where to go?"

Frostwind gave a short nod and obediently went to carry out his mission, leaving in much the same manner as he'd arrived.

"Is everything alright, Jack?" North asked carefully.

"Yeah, why?"

The Cossack glanced from Jack to the window, then over to the slowly dispersing elves before letting his gaze drift back to Jack. "No reason."

Jack shrugged and reclined back in his seat. That is, until he spotted the few iridescent green feathers on the floor near Tooth. If one were to say he calmly reached down to pick them up, that one would be telling the greatest lie of the century. No. He pounced. Like a cat. On a sugar rush. In under a second he had seized the feathers, holding them up to the light to better admire them. The others were openly worried now, but Jack didn't even notice.

"Frostwind, wait up!" Jack suddenly called, shooting off after his dragon.

Bunny blinked as the events slowly sunk in before he turned to a blushing Tooth. "Are you moultin'?"

Tooth's embarrassed expression quickly morphed to indignant rage.

 

* * *

 

Tooth was 98% sure something was up with Jack. It was fairly obvious, actually; but as for what that something was, well, Tooth had no idea. It was one of the now rare occasions that she was directing her fairies from the Tooth Palace instead of being out in the field herself, but if she hadn't been there, she would not have spotted Jack flying around one of the other towers, looking for all the world like he was searching for something. Every now and then he'd stop to talk to some of the fairies before moving off again, scanning every nook and cranny of the place.

Tooth didn't even notice that she'd stopped watching him until a peppy 'Hey, Tooth!" from behind nearly gave her a heart attack.

"Hello, Jack," she spared him a warm smile. "Moscow, sector one, we've got an incisor and a molar on the same street."

"Do you know where Baby Tooth is?"

"I sent her off to Japan about half an hour ago – Sydney, sector three, premolar and a really wobbly canine on stand-by! She should be back soon."

"Okay, cool. I was wondering if I could borrow her next week?"

"Sure, I don't see a problem," Tooth shrugged. "Uh-oh, we've got two incisors in the same house; Tokyo sector two! Any specific reason?" she asked, turning back to him.

"She's just the right level of shiny."

Tooth, as well as all the fairies swarmed around her, momentarily froze to stare at him.

Jack, apparently completely unfazed by the looks he was receiving, said, "Could you ask her for me? Tell her to meet me at the lake on Monday if she says yes!" and without another word he was zipping off again, leaving Tooth and her minions to watch after him in complete bafflement.

 

* * *

 

"Oi, North, you here, mate?" Bunny called out as he, Sandy and Tooth entered the Globe Room.

"Yes, yes, what is it?" North asked, entering from a side door. "What is emergency?"

"We need to talk," Tooth told him. "About Jack."

North heaved a huge sigh and flopped down into an armchair by the fire, gesturing for them to do the same. "So you have noticed strangeness, too."

Sandy nodded, showing them all a scene of a tiny sand-Jack flying all over the place, but not once delivering snow like he normally did.

"I found him in the Warren searchin' for old wrappers and dippin' random objects into the dye river," Bunny added with crossed arms.

"He's been collecting feathers," Tooth said uncomfortably. "And he asked to borrow Baby Tooth because she's 'just the right level of shiny'."

The others stared at her for a moment.

"Is same here," North told them. "Elves are constantly taking shiny things to give to ice dragon when it stops by."

"I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation; I just don't know what it is. Maybe he's–" Tooth cut herself off as a bunch of elves massed into the room in time for Jack's dragon to swoop in, pick through the pile of random stuff they'd taken and fly off again.

Bunny gave Tooth a sceptical look. "Better be one hell of an explanation."

"Maybe is elemental or seasonal thing?" North suggested, reading Sandy's expression.

"Do you think maybe we should go ask one of the other seasonal spirits, then?" Tooth asked.

"Would not hurt. But does anyone know where to find them?"

They all exchanged helpless glances.

"Ya know, we could always just try askin' Frostbite," Bunny shrugged.

Sandy shook his head, creating a globe and a question mark. The message was clear: he'd become even harder to find than usual.

"Well, it's summer down in the Southern Hemisphere now, right?" Tooth informed them.

"And where there's summer, there's a summer spirit," Bunny finished.

"Then is decided," North stood to his full height. "To the sleigh!"

 

* * *

 

If asked, Lleu could comfortably say he loved his job. And unlike his icy counterpart, he felt it was even better that nobody could see him; it meant there was _so much_ he could get away with. Like moving people's things from one side of their beach towels to the other when they weren't looking. Or making footprints in the sand when they were. The confusion was beautiful.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on where you stood), he was distracted from his beach-antics as a red blur streaked across the sky in the distance. Lleu narrowed his eyes as he followed it with his gaze. It was too low to be a plane and too big to be a bird or a kite. Not to mention there were a bunch of brown blobs in front of it. Which really only left one explanation.

Question was, what was Santa Claus doing so far south at that time of year?

"Probably worth investigating," he mused, calling for the wind to carry him.

Like the ninja he sometimes liked to pretend he was, Lleu managed to land soundlessly on the runners of the sleigh without being spotted by any of its occupants, noting that the Guardians were all busy peering over the sides of the sleigh in apparent search for something; well, all except Bunny, who looked like he was busy trying to keep down his lunch. The fact that Jack wasn't with them could explain the searching, but if they _were_ looking for the winter spirit, they were looking in the wrong place. Unless, of course, they weren't looking for Jack at all.

Lleu smirked to himself as an idea sprung to mind. He couldn't waste such a golden opportunity, after all.

"Bunny," he whispered, just loud enough that only the Pooka would hear him.

Just as he'd hoped, one of Bunny's ears twitched in his direction, but the rabbit didn't move from his tense position.

"Hey, Bunny," he tried again. "Buuuuunny."

The other ear twitched and Bunny cautiously tilted his head slightly in Lleu's direction. "Did you guys hear that?" he asked his companions.

"Hear what?" came Tooth's reply.

Lleu shoved a fist in his mouth to keep from laughing.

"I thought I heard someone callin' me."

"Bah! You are probably hearing things," North bellowed from up front.

Lleu waited until everything went quiet again before, "Hey, Bunny, guess what."

"I swear I can hear somethin'," Bunny said, sounding increasingly frustrated and confused. He shifted himself a little closer to the edge of the sleigh to peer out but instantly regretted his decision and disappeared back inside.

" _Bunny_ ," Lleu huffed. "I know you can hear me. Come on."

Bunny moved again, but this time let his ears do the searching instead of his eyes.

"That's it, a little closer…"

"Who's there?" the Pooka demanded.

"Guess what, Bunny."

"What?" it was more of a confused 'what' than an actual answer to what he'd said, but Lleu would take what he could get.

"HI!" the summer spirit yelled as loudly as he could, springing up from the runners and into the rabbit's face.

Bunny jumped so high he almost fell out of the sleigh. The other Guardians likewise flinched, their heads all snapping around to face him.

"Gah! You're as bad as Jack!" Bunny growled, shoving Lleu away with a paw. "Bloody hell you nearly gave me a heart attack!"

Lleu was too busy laughing to form a coherent response.

"Ah, just the man we were looking for!" North smiled, bringing the sleigh to a halt.

"At your service," Lleu bowed, tipping an invisible hat. "What can I do for you?"

"We wanted to ask you something," Tooth said carefully. "About seasonal spirits."

"Oh no, what did he do?" Lleu sat up, suddenly serious.

The Guardians looked rather wary.

Sandy was the first to try and explain, but Lleu just stared in confusion.

"Sorry, man, I suck at Pictionary."

"He's turned into a bloody magpie," Bunny crossed his arms. At Lleu's raised brow, he added, "He's been goin' around collectin' stuff to an obsessive degree and to be frank it's startin' to freak us out a bit."

"Ooooh," Lleu chuckled. "Geez, don't scare me like that; I thought something was seriously wrong."

"Wait, this is normal?" Tooth frowned.

"Yeah, it'll happen every one hundred years or so. You'll get used to it."

"What exactly is 'it'?" North asked slowly.

 _Hmm, to tell or not to tell? On the one hand, I could save them a lot of worrying and confusion… on the other, they'll be worried and confused._ "Heh," Lleu smirked, fishing around in his pocket and pulling out a glitter-smothered wind chime, which he threw to Bunny. "Do me a favour and give this to Jack?"

Bunny looked from him to the chime and back again rather blankly.

"But tell him I want it back in fifty years when it's my turn," he added. "He can just leave it in the temple with the rest of my stuff. He'll know what I mean." Then, revelling in their completely lost expressions, he stood and jumped out of the sleigh. "Have fun!"

"Wait, you didn't answer the question!" one of them called to him.

Lleu just laughed.

 

* * *

 

If they were honest with themselves, Lleu had been next to useless, only serving to make them more confused. And when Jack didn't come to the Pole after they'd returned there and activated the Aurora Borealis, they became increasingly concerned. Not to mention they had no idea how to locate him. That is, of course, until Frostwind flew in and sat expectantly before them like he was there for the meeting.

The Guardians stared at Frostwind. Frostwind stared at the Guardians. Silence reigned.

Sandy looked to the others, trying to convey to them his line of thought.

"A substitute?" Tooth guessed, much to Sandy's relief.

"The blighter knows not to blow off meetings," Bunny grumbled irately. "What if it'd been an emergency?"

Frostwind suddenly perked up, releasing a breathy cry of alarm.

Sandy held up his hands to placate the creature, trying to convey that, no, there wasn't actually an emergency.

"Is Frostwind, yes?" North asked. The dragon nodded. "We are looking for Jack; could you show us where he is?"

Frostwind seemed to consider this for a moment before trudging back over to the window. When the Guardians didn't move, he looked back at them expressionlessly.

Bunny heaved a huge sigh. "To the sleigh?"

 

* * *

 

The temple carved into a mountain that Frostwind had led them to was not really what they'd been expecting (mentions of said temple by the summer spirit aside). From the look of the worn and damaged trail leading down the mountain, it was safe to say the structure was once a place humans had gone, but now, being only accessible from the air, was likely abandoned. There were large cracks in the walls and pillars, the whole thing seemingly only held together by a patchwork of ice, crawling plants and mud. None of this took away from the beauty of it, however.

Frostwind didn't bother to check that the Guardians were still following as they approached, soaring straight in through the large entrance and disappearing into the darkness.

"Why would Jack come here?" Tooth asked, eyeing the illegible inscriptions carved into the walls. Despite having knowledge of every language, this was not one she could read.

"I do not know," North admitted, scanning the darkness in a futile attempt to see what was ahead. "Shall we go and find out?"

Sandy nodded and stepped forward, only to find his way blocked by some kind of invisible force.

"Some kind of protection spell," Bunny noted with narrowed eyes as he placed a paw against the invisible barrier.

"But if we can't get in…" Tooth frowned.

A frustrated huff from inside drew their attention. Frostwind was staring at them (looking rather annoyed for a being that couldn't really change facial expressions).

"Oi, don't give us that; we can't get through."

If the dragon's eyes weren't made of ice, he probably would have rolled them. As it was, he merely slipped back outside and started nudging the Pooka's paw. When the rabbit clearly didn't get the message, Frostwind resorted to biting down onto the appendage (ignoring the protests this garnered) and dragged him through the barrier.

The others, upon understanding that they would have to travel with him to get through, were far more cooperative. They walked as a single unit through the unlit hallway, the dragon as their only guide in the darkness. After what felt like an eternity, the walkway finally opened out into a large square room.

The first thing they noticed was the atmosphere – a charge to the air not unlike that felt during a storm; a warning and promise of power. The air itself, though, wasn't even damp. It put a feeling of foreboding in all of them.

The room, however, was much like what one would expect to find in a temple; there was a stone alter in the centre, and the walls were beautifully decorated with murals. One figure that came up again and again was that of a woman, depicted much larger than the people around her and always without colour. Four ornate chests stood in the corners of the space, each one decorated in a different style. The blue and white one with silver adorning was the only one that was open.

And there, standing just in front of the alter, was Jack. He didn't seem to notice they were there, completely absorbed in his task of freezing various shiny objects together in the vague form of a woman.

Frostwind hurried over excitedly at the sight of him, finally drawing the winter spirit's attention.

"Back so soon?" Jack asked. "Was it important?"

The Guardians would have taken this moment to peacefully and calmly announce their presence, had the statue thing not _moved_. The half-finished sculpture crouched down of its own accord to lovingly stroke Frostwind's snout.

"What the bloody hell is that?!" Bunny cried before he could even think to stop himself.

Jack startled at the sudden shout, and he, as well as his dragon and the living-sculpture turned to stare at the new arrivals.

"What are you guys doing here?" Jack asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

"Frostwind led us here," Tooth replied quietly, looking more than a little lost.

"Oh," was all he said, before returning his attention to what he'd been doing when they walked in.

"Um, Jack?" North hedged.

"Yeah?" Jack didn't look up.

"What are you doing?"

"Building an armour."

"Why?"

"Because if she doesn't have any armour she can't leave the temple," Jack explained like that made absolutely perfect sense.

"And who is 'she'?" Bunny asked, eyeing the statue-thing warily. It didn't escape his notice that the statue thing was staring back at him, either. Actually, he was fairly sure it would have confronted him by now had it not been deliberately standing still for Jack.

"Hang on, almost done," Jack waved in a 'shut up' kind of way. "This one's from Sophie," Jack told the thing, reaching up to place a tiara on its head. "And that should do it," he stepped back to admire his handy-work. "Baby Tooth's gonna meet us at the lake. You think this'll be enough?"

The woman moved around as though examining her 'outfit', and it was only then that the Guardians noticed the semi-transparent distortion in the air in places the armour didn't cover, vaguely resembling a body. Apparently approving, she suddenly swung her arms around the winter spirit and hugged him deeply.

"Still waiting for an explanation," Bunny announced.

"Yeah, yeah, keep your fur on," Jack rolled his eyes. "Guys, this is the Wind."

They stared at him.

"Wind, these are the Guardians. But you already knew that."

"The wind is a spirit?" Tooth was the first to voice one of their collective thoughts.

"Um, yes and no," Jack replied, watching as Wind moved over to them and inspected them all closely. "Most of the time she's just, well, the _wind_ , but she does have semi-sentience. Then about once every hundred years, she can gain a form like this – it only lasts for a week or so, though."

"Is that why you needed shiny things?" North looked over the rather mismatched armour.

"Well, anything would do the job, really. But she has a thing for shiny stuff," Jack smirked.

"Oh, that reminds me," Bunny reached into one of the pouches on his sash and pulled out the wind chime Lleu had given him. "Lleu asked me to give this to ya; but he said ya have to give it back for 'his turn'."

Wind snatched the chime from his paws, holding it up to her face.

"I'll have to remember to thank him," Jack mumbled, joining them. "The cord on it's long enough to put around your neck," he told his oldest companion. She glanced at him before doing so.

Sandy was the first to recover from the shock of it all, offering the Wind a formal greeting. She pretty much skipped the handshake and all semblance of personal space, practically pouncing on him to admire the golden sand that made up his body. Sandy looked like he didn't know whether to be scared or flattered.

"Come on," Jack called, racing out of the room. "We've only got a week and there's so much I want to show you!"

The Wind scrutinised the Guardians for a moment longer before she, accompanied by Frostwind, hurried after the boy. The Guardians watched them go for a second before shrugging and following.

Weirder things had happened, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, for the record, Lleu's wind likes noisy things, Ceres' likes natural things, and May's likes pretty things


	76. A Change in the Wind Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry! Oh my gosh D: I won't bore you with excuses - I've been busy and unmotivated. I don't know when the next chapter will be, but I try not to let the gap be quite so large.
> 
> Thank you so much for all your patience! xx
> 
> Disclaimed.

Being the semi-sentient force of nature that she was, there was really very little in the world that the Wind truly cared about. One was shiny things. The other, and by far more important, was a young winter spirit who had entered the world alone. There was nothing, Wind knew, that she would not do for this lonely boy, her constant companion and beloved friend.

She was always with him, laughing and playing alongside him as she carried him wherever he wanted to go; worrying and fretting over him when life was particularly cruel; and cheering him up or scolding him when the need arose.

Of course, being what she was, the Wind could only ever be there for him in spirit (essence?) apart from the regular, week-long period once every one hundred years when she could take on a 'body' of her own; though in truth it was little more than a distortion in the air. But Jack didn't seem to mind, creating an 'armour' of sorts for her so she could leave the temple every time. And if Jack was happy, so was the Wind.

Wind looked over at the winter spirit in question, who was flying alongside her, supported by her currents, and was chatting excitedly about all the things he wanted to show her. This was only the third time she'd been able to be with him like this and the look on his face was exactly the same as it had been the first time – so full of energy and excitement.

Behind them she was aware of the reindeer-pulled sleigh containing the strange group that called themselves the Guardians. She knew all of what had occurred between them and her boy, both good and bad, the latter of which she was willing to overlook so long as they continued to look out for and support him as they had been. Wind knew Jack considered them to be something of a family to him, and so in a way they were family to her. So long as they did nothing to hurt him, of course.

"We're here!" Jack called, beaming at her as he suddenly dove down towards a frozen lake beneath them.

The Wind laughed as she chased him, easily catching up and dancing around him with all the grace of a ballerina. Frostwind, somewhere behind them, huffed at their antics.

"Race you!" Jack suddenly challenged, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

The Wind would have rolled her eyes if Jack could have seen. They both knew he could not outrun the very force that controlled his flight. To prove her point, she blew a gale back at him to slow him down and easily took the lead.

"Hey! That's cheating!"

The Wind only laughed, dismissing the headwind and letting him catch up.

"Okay, new rules," he told her. "We freefall. No powers. Deal?"

The Wind smirked, killing the air current keeping them both afloat. The both plummeted, the younger of the two with a startled cry that quickly morphed into laughter, mingling with the gentle jingling of the items amongst her armour that doubled as instruments.

The surface of the lake was now mere metres away and, just before the two of them could crash into (through) the ice, Wind caught them both, depositing them gently on the surface.

"I win!" Jack declared.

Wind pushed him.

"Okay, okay, it was a draw."

She crossed her arms, some of the shiny things that made up the mask of her face rising like a sceptical brow.

"Fine," Jack sighed. "You win. But it was close; I'll get you next time."

"Are you okay?" Tooth fretted, flying over to them before the sleigh even got the chance to land.

"We're fine, Tooth," Jack reassured her, looking around for the eighth member of their party.

Baby Tooth announced herself with a chirp of hello as she fluttered over to land on Jack's shoulder and eyed the Wind in a mixture on interest and nervousness.

"Hey, Baby Tooth," Jack smiled at the tiny fairy. "I'd like to introduce you to the Wind. Wind, this is Baby Tooth."

The Wind, of course, already knew that. But it was different to know about something than it was to actually _see_ it. In awe at the beautiful (shiny) hummingbird-like creature, Wind moved closer, picking the fairy up in gently cupped hands.

"Heh, I think she likes you," Jack smiled.

Baby Tooth greeted the force of nature in her squeaky language. The Wind practically cooed, excitedly placing the fairy on her head with the tiara from Sophie.

"The lake hasn't changed much since last time," Jack informed her, gazing around at the scenery. "But hey, Burgess has! Come on!" and then he was off again, running across the surface towards the town.

Wind hurried after him with Frostwind in tow. The Guardians watched for a moment before joining the chase, only Bunny grumbling that it was 'bloody freezing' and 'why did they have to do so much running around?'.

With Jack as her tour guide, Wind took in the buildings and layout of his hometown, marvelling at how different it had all become since the last time she'd truly seen it. What had once been little wooden structures and large stone buildings were now far more 'modern' and larger. She took great interest in the glowing signs and lights – something that was so different to what had been around a century earlier – and the things people were wearing and doing.

Much as she'd expected, Jack eventually led them all to the house of a certain young boy and his sister; two children that Wind knew were very important to her winter spirit.

"Okay, wait here," Jack instructed to all of them as they came in to land in the backyard. "I'm gonna go check if they're home." Without checking to see if they would all obey, he flew up to one of the second-story windows.

Wind turned, preoccupying herself by looking over the Guardians clambering out of the sleigh. They all watched her nervously as she stared. The Tooth Fairy – Tooth, Jack called her – was truly very beautiful. And shiny. It was a good thing she had smaller, more compact versions of herself; the Wind didn't think the woman would much appreciate the treatment Wind was giving the one called Baby Tooth (also the sight of a fully grown woman sitting on a conglomeration of shiny objects would be rather ridiculous).

In the back of her mind, Wind was aware that Jack was returning to the ground and moved her gaze over to him.

"They're coming," Jack announced with a grin.

Frostwind immediately perked up, running over to the backdoor to greet the children as they exited. The boy, Jamie's eyes immediately locked onto Wind, an expression of awe and a great deal of confusion on his face. The little girl, however, had eyes only for the Pooka.

"Bunny!" Sophie cried, hurrying over to him.

"Hey there, little anklebiter," Bunny grinned, kneeling down to her height.

"Whoa," Jamie breathed, absently stroking the excited ice dragon as he looked between Jack and the Wind. "I take it this is what you wanted all that shiny stuff for?"

"So was not just us," North noted in the background. Jack ignored him.

"Yep!" Jack beamed at the boy. "Jamie, this is the Wind. Wind, this is Jamie."

"Wait, the wind is an actual spirit?" Jamie asked, casting a nervous glance at the Wind as she kneeled down in front of him. A startled cry escaped him as he was suddenly pulled into a deep embrace. Jamie looked questioningly up at Jack, who looked equally surprised.

If the Wind could have talked, there was much she would have said to this young boy – so many things to thank him for. She knew that she alone wasn't enough to support the winter spirit she cared so deeply for; had known it for quite some time. Because while he was outwardly happy and cheerful most of the time, Wind had seen the way he'd been slowly degenerating over the years. He was lonely, and the gap in his heart wasn't something that she could completely fill. Jamie hadn't been the only one, but he specifically had played a very large and important role in helping her boy to fill that gap. If it hadn't been for him, Wind didn't know how different things would have been – for one, Jack would probably still be alone. Pitch Black, also, would likely be in power.

Wind hoped she'd get the chance to see the Boogieman face-to-face before the end of the week; she wanted to give him more than just a piece of her mind. The Moon, also, had a lecture coming to him.

Wind gently let Jamie go, but remained crouched where she was.

"Um, I think this means she likes you?" Jack managed.

Jamie looked like he didn't know how to feel about that.

"Pretty!" Sophie cooed, finally catching sight of the stranger in the yard.

Wind pivoted to face the young girl who was staring at her wide-eyed from where she had wormed her way into Bunny's lap. This was the owner of her tiara, Wind remembered. Being careful not to dislodge Baby Tooth, she reached up and removed the decoration, placing it carefully on Sophie's head with a smile. Baby Tooth chirped, ruffling her feathers.

"So, should we go find your friends?" Jack asked his favourite believer. "I promised Wind a snowball fight and I reckon you guys are the only ones who'll stand a chance against her."

"Yeah! Okay, come on!" Jamie grinned, running around the side of the house toward the street.

Jack laughed as Frostwind chased after him, pouncing and knocking him into the snow.

"C'mon, Wind," he called, shooting off into the air. "We'd better make some good snowball weather!" Pivoting in the air, he turned to address the Guardians. "We'll meet you in the park!"

Bunny grumbled something under his breath but followed the others, stopping only to shove Frostwind off his prize while Tooth helped Jamie back to his feet.

The Wind danced around Jack Frost as they soared over the streets of Burgess, bringing a flurry of snowflakes with them as they went. So much had changed in a hundred years, and yet so much was still the same. She couldn't help but wonder how different things would be in another hundred years. But there was one thing she did know; Jack Frost would never be alone again. Things would change, people would come and go, and pain would surely present itself, but Jack wouldn't have to face any of it by himself. He wasn't alone anymore. And she didn't have to worry quite so much. She still would, though.

Jack's laughter echoed through the air, travelling further on her breezes. The future could wait. Right now what mattered was the present – living in the moment. And in that moment she was at peace.

The two of them angled their bodies towards the park, racing each other much like they had earlier. The Wind would win this time, too. Just like how she planned to win the snowball fight. And every other competition Jack challenged her with. Just because she loved him, didn't mean she was going to go easy on him, after all.


	77. Joke's On You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy April Fool's!
> 
> This one feels a bit rushed to me but it's already late, so... Also, I managed to incorporate a request in it! There you go, Alliprince :3
> 
> Disclaimed.

Jack opened his eyes in excitement as the light of dawn washed over him. On a normal day, he would have groaned at the obnoxious light and rolled over on his tree branch for a few more hours of rest. But today wasn't a normal day. He'd been waiting too long to waste precious time sleeping. There was much work to be done and not a lot of time in which to do it; April Fool's pranks had to finish by midday, after all.

With a huge grin, Jack shot off his branch into the sky, letting the wind catch him. "What do you think, wind? Who should we target first?"

The wind tossed him southwards and Jack held back a snicker.

"Over-grown rabbit it is."

A rustle from the bushes nearby made him pause, however, and he stared into the darkness, trying to locate the source of the noise. It was probably just a squirrel or something, but better safe than sorry. Jack spun around as heavy footfalls reached his ears, accompanied by heavy breathing.

"Okay, a _big_ squirrel," he muttered. The wind wrapped around him protectively.

Without warning, a dark blur sprung from its hiding place amidst the trees and charged him. Jack barely managed to let out a yelp before he was snagged by the hood of his jumper and dragged off through the woods.

"Ah! Hey! Let me go!" he cried, craning his neck in an attempt to get a visual on his attacker. His eyes widened in dread. "Of course," he huffed. "It _had_ to be a stupid Nightmare." Jack repositioned his staff and slammed it into the horse's muzzle. The Nightmare whinnied in protest but didn't let go, even as ice began cascading across its face.

Before he had the chance to try again, the Nightmare suddenly plunged down a dark hole in the ground – a hole Jack very much wished he didn't recognise – dragging the winter spirit along with it. Hooves clattering on stone announced their arrival at the bottom and the Nightmare gracelessly tossed him heavily to the ground.

"It's about time you got here."

Jack hastily pulled himself to his feet and scanned the area, looking for the source of the voice even as his eyes were still adjusting to the dimmer lighting. He blinked as he spotted four figures seated around a dark stone table. He had to be seeing things.

"Excuse me?" he addressed the head of the table – Pitch Black himself.

"What, are ya deaf as well as blind?!" a second, heavily accented voice snapped and Jack found himself on the receiving end of a glare from the Leprechaun beside Pitch.

"Um…"

"Did you not see the birds?" Pitch drawled lazily, his chin resting in his hand.

"Birds?"

"Yes, birds," Chuck – the groundhog – rolled his eyes.

"No?"

"It doesn't matter," the fourth intervened. Jack blanched when he realised it was Ceres. "Just sit down already so we can get this meeting over with."

There was only one empty chair at the table but Jack made no move to take it. "Meeting? What are you talking about? What meeting?"

The others stared at him.

"Did you hit your head or something?" Chuck raised a brow. Jack matched his expression.

"The Guardian meeting," Pitch said in a 'duh' kind of tone. "The one that we pre-planned a month ago? Remember?"

"Ooookay, either you've all lost your minds or I'm still asleep, so…" Jack gestured vaguely towards the exit, "I'm just… gonna go now…" He turned to flee but was stopped by a Nightmare standing directly behind him.

"You're not goin' anywhere until we're done," Patrick glared. "Now sit ya frosty behind down before I do it for ya."

Bemused and the slightest bit intimidated, Jack did as he was told.

"The sprites have informed me Toothiana is on the move," Ceres said gravely. "They've spotted some of her fairies on the outskirts of towns."

"The Sandman, too," Chuck grunted. "Saw his sand last night."

 _What is happening?_ Jack stared.

"Then it's clear we need to take action before they, or the other two, do anything further," Pitch straightened.

"What do ya suggest?" Pat asked.

"I say we hit 'em where they live!" Chuck cried.

"Yes, because striking back on their home ground is such a wise decision," Ceres said sarcastically. "Do you even have a brain?"

"Then what do you think?"

"I say we pick them off one by one – from the sounds of things they haven't grouped together yet. If we take them one at a time, our chances of success are far higher."

"We could set a trap," Pat nodded. "Lure them to a place of our own choosing."

"What do you think, Jack?" Pitch's golden eyes snapped to the silent winter spirit.

"I think this is one weird dream," Jack replied, eyeing them all. "Seriously, what's going on here?"

"The four most dangerous spirits are starting an attack and all you can say is 'this is a weird dream'?" Chuck gaped.

"Dangerous?" Jack frowned. Well, he supposed, they kinda were. "Maybe, but they'd never attack anyone unprovoked."

The other four stared at him like he was insane.

"Are you even listening to yourself?" Ceres criticised. "Just last night that stupid fairy probably stole at least a few hundred kids' teeth – and their memories along with them!"

"Um, yeah? That's kinda what she does? You know, to protect the memories? And she doesn't _steal_ them," Jack shook his head. "What's wrong with- _oooooh_."

"Oh?" Pitch echoed, one brow raised.

"This is just some weird prank because it's April Fool's Day, isn't it?" Jack smirked. "Nice try, guys."

"You think this is a joke?!" Pat snarled.

"April Fool's was days ago!" Chuck added.

"A-huh, you're not fooling me, guys," Jack reclined back in his chair.

"I don't know what's gotten into you, Frost," Ceres said, rising from her seat. "But you seem to be a few eggs short of a dozen today – more so than usual. If the only way to make you believe us is physical proof, then so be it."

Jack suddenly found himself hauled up by his hoodie – _I'm sensing a theme here_ – and dragged back towards the entrance like a sack of potatoes. "I can walk, you know," he grumbled, but Ceres ignored him.

The three remaining at the table exchanged a glance before following them.

 

* * *

 

It wasn't until they'd reached the outskirts of Burgess that Ceres finally released her prisoner, tossing him in a way that had Jack staggering a few steps before he could regain his balance.

"See for yourself," was all she said.

Jack, bewildered, turned around. There was a huge cluster of mini fairies perched in the nearby trees, all of them watching the newcomers warily. Despite the tense atmosphere, Jack smiled.

"What are you guys all doing out here? It's morning – shouldn't you be off collecting teeth somewhere or back at the Palace?" he called out to them.

One of the tiny fairies flittered from her perch towards him. Jack recognised her instantly – differentiated from her sisters by the yellow feather atop her head.

"Hey, Baby Tooth!"

Baby Tooth stopped a short distance from him and the surprisingly hostile expression on her face gave Jack pause. This wasn't the greeting he was used to.

"Baby Tooth?"

Baby Tooth squeaked out something that sounded alarmingly like a war-cry and all of the fairies amidst the foliage flocked together. And charged. Jack's eyes widened in shock and he found himself unable to move as they angled their little bodies so that their beak-like noses were held out towards him like spears.

A mass of vines shot out of the ground, weaving together to make a temporary barrier between the Tooth Fairy's workers and them.

"Don't just stand there!" Ceres snapped, yanking him by the hoodie towards where the other three were standing.

"Do you believe us now?" Chuck grouched.

Jack blinked but couldn't find the words to respond. He still didn't believe that these four were 'Guardians' but the blatant hostility of the tooth fairies had certainly given him pause. He was leaning more towards still being asleep but he hadn't quite ruled out the possibility that everyone had gone insane.

"Can we talk about this later?" Pat eyed the wall warily – fairies already starting to navigate around it.

Jack gasped, his stomach lurching, as the ground suddenly disappeared from under them. When his vision returned he found himself standing once more in Pitch's lair.

"Satisfied?" Pitch asked him, unimpressed.

"No, not particularly," Jack snapped back. "Would someone care to explain why I was just attacked by an ally?"

"Ally?" Pitch echoed. "Why Jack, you of all people should know how despicable those blasted fairies are; they did steal your memories, after all."

White hot anger bubbled up in Jack's throat. "That wasn't Tooth's fault! She didn't know I'd lost them!"

"Why are you defending her?!" Pat cried. "She's the _enemy_! You _know_ that!"

"What, and you're my allies?" Jack shot back. "Last I checked, the only person in here that even remotely _liked_ me is Ceres. Pitch has tried to kill me multiple times, Chuck downright hates me (although that may be justified, all things considered) and you have never been anything but hostile to me!"

The others stared at him, faces expressionless.

"Feel better?" Ceres asked.

"A little bit!"

"Good," she sniffed. And then whacked him across the back of the head.

"Ow!"

"Now if you'd shut up and listen for a second, you'd know that while we might not all be chummy, we have a single, common goal to protect the children, no matter what. Pitch has not tried to kill you, by the way. I don't know what's going on with you but you must have flown into a tree or something because you're insane."

"P-Protect the children?" Jack stuttered. "Pitch is the only one here – besides me – who even has more than a passive indifference towards kids and he wants to make them live in fear! How is that protecting them?!"

"Can you please stop talking about me like I'm not here?" Pitch cut in. "I don't want them to live in fear; I use fear to _teach_ them, to help them grow! What's gotten into you?!"

"Okay, you know what?" Jack ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "I don't have time for this." Turning on his heel, he called on the wind to carry him away.

The four remaining shared a glance. "Well… that went well."

 

* * *

 

Jack made sure to navigate around the area the manic tooth fairies had been on his way to Jamie's house. The last thing he wanted was another run-in with them. He didn't want to have to hurt them.

He'd barely landed on Jamie's windowsill before the kid was opening the window and eagerly bustling him into the room.

"Hey, kiddo!"

"Hey, Jack! I didn't think I'd see you 'til next winter!" Jamie grinned, shutting the window again.

"Nah, not leaving for another few days," Jack shrugged. "…Hey, can I ask you something?"

"Sure, what is is?"

"Who are the Guardians?"

Jamie pulled a face. "Are you okay?"

"Fine, just please answer the question."

"…They're the spirits that prot–"

"No, I meant _who_ are they; like who specifically."

"Well there's you," Jamie began slowly, a weird look on his face. "And Ceres, Chuck, Pitch, and Patrick. Right?"

Jack reached over and placed his hand against Jamie's forehead. "No fever," he mumbled.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine." _It's the rest of you I'm worried about_. "So hey, it's almost Easter," Jack said, watching Jamie carefully.

The kid bit his lip. "I know," he replied nervously. "But you guys'll be there just in case, right?"

"Just in case?"

"You know," Jamie hedged. "In case Bunny turns up?"

Jack pinched himself, earning an unreadable look from Jamie. _Nope, not asleep…_ "Um, yeah, we'll be there…"

"Jack! Jack!"

They both turned towards the door as Sophie wormed her way into the room and flung herself at the winter spirit.

"Heya Soph," Jack ruffled her hair, noting the strange look on Jamie's face that the kid quickly hid behind a smile. "What's new with you?"

"Went to zoo!"

"You went to the zoo? Wow!" Jack grinned, laying on the enthusiasm.

"They didn't have any groundhogs, so she was pretty disappointed," Jamie added.

"You like groundhogs, huh?" Jack asked slowly.

Sophie giggled into his hoodie.

"I'm starting to wonder if you're not more trouble than you're worth," a voice drawled from the shadows.

Jack was on his feet in a heartbeat, poised in a defensive position even as he ushered the kids behind him. "Pitch!"

"Still stating the obvious, I see," Pitch remarked, coming into full view.

"Hey Pitch," Jamie waved awkwardly.

Pitch spared him a glance. "Hello."

Jack blinked at the exchange. "Um, Jamie, you do remember how this guy tried to take over the world, right?"

"What are you talking about?" Jamie frowned at him. "He helped _save_ the world, remember?"

"Sure, _riiiight_. And the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, Sandman, and Santa Claus are actually evil."

"Um, yeah?"

Jack stared at him.

"Are you quite done?" Pitch interrupted. "If you don't mind, I'd like to deal with this problem before the four of them can do any lasting damage."

"You're all insane…" Jack muttered, running a hand through his hair. "I don't know how they managed to convince you to work with them in this elaborate plot against me, but I'm not falling for it," he told the Boogieman.

"We already _told_ you, it's not April Fool's – that was days ago. What possible reason could we have to come up with an 'elaborate plot'?"

"Payback?"

"For what?"

"All those pranks I played on you?"

"What pranks?"

"Are you being serious right now?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"What's gotten into you?" Jamie asked, looking very confused.

"What's gotten into–" Jack cut himself off with a huff. "You know what? Fine. Let's pretend for a second that I'm the one who's gone insane."

"Hardly a challenge," Pitch muttered. Jack ignored him.

"So you're a good guy."

"Yes?"

"Who _helps_ children, instead of trying to make them scared of everything in a bid for power."

"Is there a point to this?"

"And the groundhog, leprechaun, and the spirit of autumn all care about kids enough to protect them too, even though their respective jobs have nothing to do with kids."

"Again, yes."

"And the Man in the Moon totally thought such a random bunch of spirits would be perfect to form the Guardians."

"The Man in the Moon?" Pitch echoed incredulously. "Of course not, why would our greatest enemy choose us?"

Jack blinked. "Come again? If he didn't choose us, who did?"

"Nobody _chose_ us," Pitch rolled his eyes. "We decided to become who we are of our own volition."

"A-huh," Jack said, completely unconvinced.

"Ugh, look, we don't have time for this," Pitch growled. He stalked forward, grabbed Jack by the hoodie and dragged him into the shadows.

Unprepared for the sudden shadow travel, Jack stumbled upon emerging back in Pitch's lair, his stomach lurching. He staggered over to the table, tripped over a chair leg, banged his head on the edge of the table and knocked himself out.

"How graceful our winter spirit is," Chuck snorted.

 

* * *

 

Jack groaned as consciousness returned to him.

"You with us, Frost?" a familiar voice called.

Jack pried open one eye, taking in the forms of Ceres, Pat, Chuck, and Pitch leaning over him. Oh yeah.

"Ow," he muttered, pushing himself up into a sitting position. He took a moment to gaze around the room, instantly recognising it as Pitch's lair. "What am I doing here?"

"Don't you remember?" Chuck drew his attention. "Pitch brought you back and then you went and knocked yourself out, ya clutz."

"I didn't miss the meeting, did I?!" he cried. The four shared a look.

"No, we haven't really started yet," Ceres said slowly.

"Good," Jack sighed in relief. Using his staff as a crutch, he got to his feet and plonked himself down in one of the chairs at the table. "So what's the news? Anyone got any movement to report?"

"Like I said earlier, my sprites spotted the fairies."

"And the dream sand," Pat added.

"Anything from Bunny or North?" Jack leaned forward, his expression grave.

"Not yet," Pitch replied. "But we can't rule them out – not with Easter so close."

"Then we'd better take action before they can."

"You have an idea, then," Chuck said after a moment's silence.

"Bunnymund is the biggest threat at the moment, right? So I say we sneak into the Warren and capture him. If he's locked up, he can't do anything against the kids."

"And you propose we just waltz in there? Did you forget? He's a warrior!"

"What, the big bad groundhog's not afraid of a bunny, is he?" Jack smirked.

"Like hell I am. I'm just trying to be tactical about this."

"Well luckily I have a plan, then."

 

* * *

 

Jack touched down on one of the sentinel eggs as he flew into the Warren without a care in the world. The second he got close, the sentinel switched to its angry face, but he paid it no mind. There were eggs everywhere – some painted, some not – all running about in their chaotic order. It was a busy time of year for the Easter Bunny. The _evil_ Easter Bunny. And no evil, overgrown rabbit was going to steal hope from kids on Jack's watch.

"No sign of Bunny," he said to himself, ignoring both the sentinel's attempts to dislodge him and the other large stone eggs moving towards him, all displaying the same displeased face. "Maybe I need to get his attention…"

With the barest tap of his staff, the egg he was sitting on froze over.

"Frost!"

Ah, there he was.

"Bunny, fancy seeing you here," Jack said in faux surprise.

"What're ya doin' here, Frost?" Bunny growled.

"What do you think? I'm here to stop you from stealing the hopes from kids. I _am_ a Guardian, after all."

Bunny paused, a smirk slowly worming its way onto his face. "And ya thought you could stop me all by yourself?"

"No," Jack smiled. Bunny's expression faltered.

The ground rumbled as vines and nearby flowers grew exponentially, wrapping themselves around Bunny's legs and torso and holding him in place. Dozens of small holes opened up, all the eggs falling through them and out of sight, and Nightmares started creeping in from the shadows, surrounding both the Pooka and all the sentinel eggs.

Jack leant back casually on his perch. "I'm just the distraction."

"Damnit, Frost! Let me go!"

"I'm sorry, what?" Jack tilted his head. "Diiiidn't quite catch that."

"I said let me go!"

"Why should I? If I do that, you're just going to fight back. Not that you really have much of a chance…" he looked over at the four who stepped out into the open. "Nice job, guys. That's one down."

"Honestly, I can't believe that worked," Ceres eyed the rabbit.

"I told you he wouldn't be expecting you," Jack stood. "Shall we move on to the next one? At this rate we'll be done by lunch."

"Don't underestimate me!" Bunny snapped, clawing his way free from his restraints. A second later he launched his boomerangs at his attackers.

Jack ducked in time to avoid a rather painful blow to the head and began manoeuvring his way towards Ceres.

"You can't win, Cottontail!" he called. "We've got you outnumbered!"

"What, four to one? I've beaten worse odds."

"Try four hundred to one," Pitch said with a self-satisfied smirk as countless Nightmares and woodland sprites closed in.

"A couple o' ponies and midgets? You've gotta be kiddin'," Bunny rolled his eyes.

"Don't judge a man by his size!" Pat raged, swinging a sword before him as he charged.

Bunny dodged the blows and retreated towards his tunnels with a few choice words.

"Damn, we lost him," Chuck grumbled.

"Nah, he's probably gone to the Pole to warn the others," Jack said with a casual shrug of his shoulder. "Let's go."

 

* * *

 

"Bunny, what's wrong?" North asked as he strode into the Globe Room. "What are you doing here?"

"We've got a problem, mate," Bunny replied from where he was warming himself by the fire.

"What kind of problem?"

"It's Jack – he's playing us."

"'Playing us'?"

"Yeah. He's figured out our prank and playin' along with it. They turned up at the Warren – stole my eggs and tangled me in my own bloody plants. Ya should've seen all the Nightmares!"

"That is problem," North said gravely. "He will likely go after Sandy and Tooth, too."

"We should warn 'em."

"Bit late for that," a voice called from the rafters.

The two holiday icons' heads shot up in time to see Tooth, wrapped in nightmare sand ropes, fall from the beams. North barely managed to catch her before she could hit the ground.

"Toothy, are you okay?"

"I've been better," she sighed. "They snuck up on me – I never saw them coming."

"You didn't really think you could get away with it, did you?" Jack smirked as he jumped down from the rafters. "No one hurts kids, not on our watch."

Pitch and the others emerged from the shadows, Sandy slung between them with a pot shoved over his head.

"Not the gold I usually work with, but it'll do," Pat snickered as they tossed the Sandman over to where the rest of the big four were standing.

"And now that you're all together, it'll be so much easier to deal with you."

Tooth sighed. "What are you planning to do with us?"

"Well, we have to be sure you can't hurt the kids ever again," Jack said offhandedly. "What do you guys think? We could lock them up somewhere?"

"That's a little overkill, don't you think?" Chuck looked up at him.

"Have you forgotten what they've done to the kids? Stealing memories, hope, wonder, dreams? We can't just let them off the hook!"

They all stared at him.

"Jack, we know ya know," Bunny rolled his eyes.

"Know what?" Jack frowned in confusion.

"We know you know about the prank," North explained.

"What prank?"

"Ha-ha, ya got us, mate," Bunny crossed his arms.

"Seriously, what are you talking about?" Jack asked. "What prank?"

"Yeah, okay, we can stop now," Chuck said.

"Stop what? What's gotten into all of you?"

"Is he being serious?" Pat frowned.

"You must have hit your head harder than I thought," Ceres raised a brow, moving his hair to see the spot where he'd banged his head, revealing a rather large bruise.

"How did that happen?!" Tooth cried.

"He knocked himself out on the table."

Bunny snorted earning an elbow in the ribs from Sandy, who had managed to get the pot off his head.

"You know," Pitch began with false innocence, taking a step towards Jack. "If we destroy them, they won't be able to threaten anyone ever again."

"Now _that's_ a little overkill, don't you think?" Jack said in amusement.

"You can never be too careful, Jack."

Jack nodded. "You're absolutely right."

"Ha-ha!" a triumphant cry preceded a blur of colour that shot out from nowhere and tackled Pitch to the floor. Everyone stared.

"Get your hands off me!" Pitch snarled.

"Now why would I want to do that?" Lleu asked with a grin. "Sorry we're late; we had to figure out a way to get here without turning into ice cubes," he told his winter counterpart.

"We?" Chuck asked.

"Yes, 'we'," a second voice chimed. The groundhog suddenly found himself hanging from the rafters by a rope around his foot.

"April Fool at your service," she bowed.

"Speaking of which," Jack turned back to Lleu, "how _did_ you get here?"

"Uh-uh," Fool shook her head. "A magician never reveals her secrets."

"You're not a magician," Jack pointed out. He glanced side-long at the top hat and tailed dress jacket she was wearing. "Even if you do dress like one."

"Of course I am!"

"Does someone want to explain what's goin' on here?" Bunny asked.

"Certainly," Fool smirked. "Jack let us in on your little plot and we were more than happy to lend a hand."

"Did you honestly think I was going to fall for that?" Jack snorted. "I'm not stupid."

"Could've fooled me," Bunny quipped. With a cry he suddenly found himself chest-deep in a hole in the floor. "What the?!"

"You're welcome," Fool said sweetly. Bunny glared at her.

"When did you drag these two into it?" Pat asked.

"On the way to the Warren," Jack replied. "I flew for a reason, you know."

"So what are you going to do with us?" North sighed. He knew Jack well enough to know revenge was on the way.

"Nothing," Jack surprised them. "So long as you apologise and admit that you can't trick me."

"Don't count on it," Pitch sneered, vanishing into the shadows.

"Aw, man," Lleu whined. "Sorry, Snow Cone."

"Don't worry; I was expecting him to do that," Jack shrugged. "So, apologies?"

"Sorry, Jack," Tooth smiled sadly. "We can't trick you."

"Apology accepted."

"I am sorry too," North nodded. "As is Sandy."

"Forgiven."

"I'm just sorry it didn't work," Ceres sniffed. "Though your confusion in the beginning was fun."

"That's probably the best you're going to get out of her," Lleu grinned.

"North, the three of us are going to need a snow globe to get out of here," she gestured to Pat and Chuck, who was still swinging from the ceiling.

"Not a problem," North waved them in the direction of his office.

"What about you, Cottontail?" Jack smirked down at the rabbit.

"Yeah right," Bunny grunted.

"Fine, Lleu, Fool and I'll just go raid the kitchen and play with the elves, then."

Bunny narrowed his eyes. There had to be a catch.

"Fool, if you will."

"My pleasure," she winked, pulling a bucket out of hammer space and moving to stand in front of the Pooka.

"What's in that?" Bunny asked suspiciously.

"Goo. Have fun getting it out of your fur, Fur-ball," she said, pouring the contents over his head.

"Ooh is that lime I smell?" Lleu grinned.

"Yep! I made it flavoured."

"Shall we go find those elves, then?" Jack smiled sinisterly.

"Oi! Alright, I'm sorry!" Bunny panicked.

"Sounds like a plan," Fool linked her arms with the boys' and together they proceeded to leave the room.

"Frostbite! Hey!"

Silence descended after their departure and Bunny tried futilely to free himself. The door to the Globe Room creaked open not minutes later and his head shot up, hoping it would be someone who could get him out of this mess.

Cold dread seized him when he spotted the hungry eyes that landed on him.

"Oh crap."


	78. Counter-Dependency

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Easter, lovely people! This chapter's short and kinda plot-less but I'm currently recovering from a nasty cold and don't feel up to thinking very hard, so please forgive me. (Akeri la malicieuse I managed to sneak in your request, though!)

Easter – Bunny's busiest time of year. It would make sense to leave him to it, avoid distractions and so forth, but this was Jack Frost. And when you're Jack Frost, 'sense' is usually just a synonym for 'boring'. And so it was that he flew into the Warren with the intention of checking on Bunny's progress.

All the eggs Chuck had 'kidnapped' on Fool's day were back, waddling around like nothing had ever even happened. He couldn't see Bunny, though, and concluded the Pooka was somewhere further in.

"Well, looks like everything's going well," Jack smiled, watching the eggs navigate around him.

"Then why don't ya leave before ya freeze somethin'?"

Jack looked up to see Bunny bounding toward him, a displeased expression on his face.

"You're not still sore about Fool's day, are you?" Jack asked innocently. There were still green clumps in his fur. He probably wouldn't be able to get it all out for a long time. "I thought green was your colour."

Bunny glared at him. "Shoo. I don't have time to deal with ya right now."

"Ouch, Bunny," Jack placed a hand to his chest.

"That didn't hurt nearly as much as it will when I kick ya out on your sorry backside, mate."

"Someone's grouchy," Jack muttered. "Okay, okay, I'm going!" he surrendered, calling the wind to sweep him back to the tunnels. As soon as Bunny was out of sight, he took a detour and hid in a tree. He was just going to watch. From a distance. Just to make sure everything went well. Definitely not because Bunny wanted him to leave.

When enough time had passed that he was sure Bunny would suspect nothing, Jack carefully hedged his way through the branches and, when the coast was clear, leapt across to an adjacent tree. Perching there, he scanned his surroundings, noting the little eggs, the angry sentinels making their way towards him, the sounds of Bunny working somewhere out of sight…

Wait.

Jack's gaze snapped back to the sentinel eggs, their faces decidedly angry as they walked across the clearing, being careful not to step on any of the little eggs.

"No, no, no, no," Jack whisper yelled, making frantic hand gestures for the golems to stand down. From the looks of things, Bunny had told them he was a threat again.

The eggs ignored his pleas. Biting his lip, Jack spared the direction he knew Bunny to be in a brief glance, but it didn't seem like his position had been given away yet.

The eggs were really close now. Left with no choice, Jack heaved a huge sigh.

"Fine!" he whispered. "I'm going, see?" When he flew off, they didn't follow him.

 _Like I'm going to be thwarted by a couple of walking boulders_ , he snickered as he once again made a detour and slipped into a deeper part of the Warren – closer to the dye river. From his new position behind a large flowering shrub he scoped the area, quickly locating Bunny (whose back was to him) barely a few hundred metres away. He would have to be absolutely silent if he didn't want to be detected.

As it turned out (and really, he should have anticipated this), sitting still and silently while watching a giant rabbit paint eggs was really, _really_ boring. Why was he even here, again? Oh yeah, counter-dependency. And to make matters worse, it felt like he was starting to get hay fever.

 _No. I will not sneeze. I have complete control over my body. And my eyes are definitely not itchy. Absolutely not. I am the master of–_ "ACHOO!"

And then half the shrub was nothing more than a few shattered icicles in the grass. Wincing, he looked up, completely unsurprised to see a displeased (but was that a small smirk he saw?) Bunny standing over him, arms crossed.

"Um, hi?"

"And, what, did ya really think I wouldn't know you were here?" Bunny asked, brow raised.

Jack stared in confusion. "You knew?"

"Why do ya think I made sure there was extra pollen?"

Jack gaped at him. "That's… you… what?"

"Why are ya still here, Frostbite?"

"I was just… wanting to make sure everything went smoothly?"

"A-huh. And this wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that I asked ya to leave, would it?"

"Absolutely not!"

"Right."

"Right," Jack sniffled. "Um… you wouldn't have happened to gotten any tissues since the last time, would you?"

"Nope."

"Damn," Jack sagged. He felt another sneeze coming on.

"You wanna get goin' before you obliterate any more of my plants?"

"Well, if you didn't sabotage me, you would still have a whole shrub," Jack pointed out.

"If you'd gone when I told ya to, you never would've gotten hay fever," Bunny countered.

"Touché." His hand flew up to cover his mouth and nose as he sneezed again. "I should probably go before I…"

"Before ya freeze everything?"

"Yeah," he rose to his feet. "Will you call off the sentinels?"

"Will ya stop comin' in uninvited?"

"No promises," Jack smirked, making his slow but steady way towards the tunnels.

"Yeah, yeah, just get lost already."

Jack rolled his eyes.

"Oi!" Bunny's voice made him pause on the threshold of the American tunnel. "Here."

"An egg?" Jack replied, looking down at the white googie in question that the Pooka had practically shoved into his hand.

"If you're so interested in makin' sure Easter goes well, then you can help paint 'em. But not in here," he hastily added at the look Jack was giving him. "You're still a disaster zone."

"Your fault," Jack said pointedly whilst trying to withhold yet another sneeze and resist the urge to wipe his nose on his sleeve.

"Just get outta here, already."

"Yes mom," Jack rolled his eyes and shot off down the tunnel, trusting the wind not to fly him into any walls in his current semi-blind state. It wasn't until he'd reached the surface that he realised he didn't have any paint.


	79. Friends with Puffins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, doing this really quickly cause I have to go to uni.
> 
> Happy birthday to HeavensLuminousArc who requested this as a birthday present for her friend Mari - happy birthday to you, as well ^w^ I hope it's okay and that you enjoy it!

Jack stared at the strange black and white bird before him. The strange black and white bird stared back. For a long moment, neither of them moved.

"You're not a penguin," he eventually said, stating the obvious. The bird, while of similar colouring, was nothing like his avian family down south. This bird was a fraction of the size, with short wings and a stocky body.

Jack took a moment to glance around, but there were no other birds in sight. "What are you doing here?" he asked, crouching down on his haunches.

The bird, still watching him, let out a long, moan-like noise not dissimilar to a muffled chainsaw or a cow. A creepy cow.

Now, normally, seeing a bird alone wasn't a big deal – it happened. But seeing a bird alone in a country known for its snowy winters at the beginning of said season was. Jack didn't know much about birds but he'd seen (and caused) enough migrations to know this wasn't normal behaviour.

The bird, still scrutinising him, began to make its leisurely way over to him on orange webbed feet, revealing one of its wings held at a funny angle. That answered that question, then.

"You can't fly?" he frowned. "Did the other birds leave you behind? Is that why you're still here?"

The bird made its weird noise again, but he had a feeling it had understood his questions about as much as he'd understood the response.

Jack smiled sadly at the little thing, knowing if it couldn't fly away it would die – either from lack of food or from the cold temperature. As a winter spirit, he wasn't very good at helping people (or in this case birds) from warming up, but there was no way he was just going to leave the poor thing to die. Of course he knew all about that 'don't mess with the course of nature' spiel that people liked to throw around, but in a sense he _was_ nature, or at least a part of it. So, mind made up, Jack gently placed his staff down beside him and reached out for the bird.

"Here, let me have a look at your wing."

The bird eyed him warily but didn't move away, letting Jack stroke its head and ruffling its feathers at his cold touch. Jack felt a smirk tug at his lips.

"If you don't like that, you're not going to want to stick around here for too much longer. For a place called Greenland, it's not really known for being very green."

Cautiously, he moved his hand down the little bird's back until he reached the problem wing. He'd barely touched it before it was protesting in what was probably pain.

"Sorry, sorry!" he quickly pulled away. "Looks like it might be broken," he sighed.

Jack wasn't unfamiliar with broken bones – having experienced it more than once in his life – but he had a feeling his usual treatment of an ice cast and lying in the snow wasn't going to work for the bird. It didn't even like his cold touch let alone a hunk of ice strapped to its wing.

…But there were other ways to fix a broken bone.

Looking around, Jack quickly spotted a couple of sticks that would work well as a splint and snatched them up before rummaging around in his hoodie pocket for something he could use to tie them together. Locating a long piece of string with a smile of success, he gently tried to coax the bird into stretching out its wing even just a little bit.

"Come on, that's it," Jack said soothingly, grabbing one of the sticks and lining it up against the bone of the wing. The bird tried to tug away but his persistence eventually won out over the creature's fear. "There, that wasn't so bad, was it?" he asked cheerily when he'd finished tying the last of the knots securing the sticks in place.

The bird looked sullen.

"Oh don't be like that," Jack rolled his eyes. "Come on, we should go find Tooth – if anyone would know what to do with a broken wing it'd be her." Pulling off his hoodie, he wrapped it around the bird like a make-shift blanket to help protect against jostling and wind chill before grabbing his staff and, bird cradled to his chest, took off for Punjam Hy Loo.

 

* * *

 

The Tooth Palace was a mess of tiny fairies fluttering about, going out to collect teeth and bringing them back to put into the golden canisters of the children they belonged to. But, chaos while it may have been, it was an organised chaos; each and every fairy knowing her job and doing it well.

It took only a matter of seconds for Jack to note the absence of the fairy queen. She must have been out on collection, something she'd been doing more of recently. He was happy for her but it certainly put a wrench in his plans.

An excited chirping had Jack turn to see a cluster of fairies come to greet him, Baby Tooth at its head.

"Hey, little Baby Teeth," he smiled, chuckling when they swooned. "I take it Tooth's out?"

Baby Tooth nodded, saying something beyond Jack's understanding.

"Any idea when she'll be back?"

The fairies started talking over each other, trying to answer his question but it went straight over his head. Three of them broke away from the group and started flitting around his hoodie, which was bundled up and carried carefully by one arm. They were probably wondering why he wasn't wearing it.

"Oh, well my little friend here is in need of some assistance and I figured Tooth would be the best person to ask," Jack explained, shifting the hood of his jumper to reveal the head of the bird.

The fairies twittered in interest, staring at the bird that stared right back. If Jack didn't know any better he'd have thought it was glaring at them.

Baby Tooth pointed northwards, trying to tell him something. Jack followed the direction she'd indicated with his eyes, and quickly understood.

"She's at the Workshop?"

Baby Tooth nodded in affirmation.

"Is everything okay?"

Another nod followed by a series of squeaks that Jack couldn't decipher.

"Okay, well, I think we'll just head on there," Jack shrugged, recovering his passenger with the hood and shifting the whole package into a more comfortable position. "Keep up the good work, ladies!" he called as he shot off towards the Pole.

 

* * *

 

When Jack flew into the Globe Room under ten minutes later, he had been expecting to see Tooth and North. He had not been expecting Bunny and Sandy to be there as well, and all of them surrounded by masses of paper.

"Did I miss something?" he found himself asking, watching the scene in confusion. The next meeting wasn't for a good few weeks, right?

"Ah, Jack! You are just in time!" North greeted heartily, waving him over. "We were about to call for you!"

"In time for what?" He quickly dodged out of the way before the large man could pull him into one of his bone-crushing hugs. He glanced over at the others, trying to figure out how they had known to be there without need for the Aurora Borealis.

"It's almost Christmas," Tooth smiled as she fluttered over, "so we decided to give North a hand with checking the lists and making sure everything is going well."

"Do not worry if you are busy," North reassured. "But if you have time, the help would be appreciated, and then we can share dinner and watch movie!"

"As long as it's not one of those bloody 'holiday' movies," Bunny rolled his eyes.

"Oh, uh, sure," Jack replied, momentarily taken by surprise. "Can I borrow Tooth for a second first?"

"Of course, Jack," Tooth squeezed his shoulder. "What is it?"

"My little friend here injured a wing – I figured you'd know more about it than me," Jack told her, carefully unwrapping part of his hoodie so that the bird inside could be seen.

His disgruntled passenger gazed around at them all before setting its gaze on Tooth – who happened to be the closest – with a look not dissimilar to the one it had given the fairies.

"Is that a puffin?" Bunny asked, breaking the silence.

"Is that what you are?" Jack looked down at the bird with one brow raised. The puffin looked up at him and _murrrrr_ ed.

"Where the heck did ya get a puffin?"

"I found it–"

The puffin cried out in protest.

"–sorry, _her_ – in Greenland. I think her wing is broken."

"Oh no, the poor thing," Tooth gasped. "Here, let me see." The second the fairy got close, the little puffin started struggling to get at her, causing Jack to wince as sharp claws dug into his chest, even through the material of his hoodie.

"Whoa, hey," he cried, trying to soothe the frazzled bird. She only settled when Tooth moved back again. With a sigh, Jack placed her down on the table, still wrapped up. When he stepped back, the puffin wormed her way to freedom and stood on the wood of the table, eyeing them all.

Sandy was the first to approach, successfully managing to get close without much fuss, and examined the make-shift splint on the damaged wing. It wasn't a professional job, but it had kept the wing from being jostled and made worse. He turned to Jack and conveyed that it would still require proper treatment.

"I will have medic yetis take care of it," North reassured, placing a heavy hand on Jack's shoulder.

The puffin swiftly jumped off the table, stormed over, and attempted to climb up Jack's leg. Jack rolled his eyes and stooped to pick her up.

"Thanks North," he smiled at the older man. "You guys keep doing what you were doing – I'll go take her to the infirmary."

 

* * *

 

"How's the bird?" Bunny asked as Jack plonked down opposite him, once again wearing his hoodie.

"From what I understood, she'll recover. She's getting patched up at the moment," Jack replied, dragging one of the long pieces of parchment towards himself. "What are we doing, exactly?"

"Just goin' through the lists to make sure no one's been missed or is on the wrong list."

"And how am I supposed to know?"

Bunny shrugged without looking up.

"Helpful." Jack didn't know the kids by name – not all of them, at least. It wasn't like he could just swoop in for an introduction, after all. Nevertheless, he glanced down at the names scrawled down on the paper, frowning in concentration as if that would make it all clear. This went on for about thirty seconds before Jack, fed up, pushed the parchment away. "Isn't there something more useful I could be doing?"

"I ask myself that every time I see ya."

"Wow. Thanks."

Bunny's ears twitched and they both turned to watch as the puffin, one wing bandaged against her body, marched into the room with a constant stream of irritated _muurr_ ing. With surprising agility, she jumped up onto the table via a chair, moved to stand in front of Bunny and 'murr'ed at him. Bunny stared her down with mild disinterest.

"Aw, I think she likes you," Jack grinned.

Bunny gave him a look that questioned his sanity. A look that earned him a fierce glare from the bird.

"Hey," Jack reached out and poked the puffin in the back. She instantly rounded on him. "I think Mister Grumpy Tail over there could use a hug."

"Don't you dare," Bunny growled.

"You're not scared of a little bird, are you, Cotton Tail?"

"Not on your life, mate."

Fortunately for Bunny, the puffin didn't seem to have understood what Jack was hinting at and continued to focus on the winter spirit. After a moment she moved over to him and jumped into his lap, enticing a small smile from Jack.

"Ya know ya can't keep her, right?" Bunny asked after a moment.

"Yeah, I know," Jack said, looking up at him as he absently stroked the puffin's feathers. "She doesn't like the cold, anyway. And I'm not sure if the penguins would approve," he added almost as an afterthought.

Bunny shook his head at his most recent penguin-related memory. It was not something he wanted a repeat of anytime soon. And this puffin seemed to like him about as much as the larger birds did. And, like with the penguins, Jack seemed completely oblivious. Either that or he was doing it on purpose. It could go either way.

Sandy drifted over, a glass of eggnog in one hand and a platter of cookies in the other, and told them that they were taking a snack break.

"Nothing sugary!" Jack heard Tooth call from across the room as he reached for one of the offered cookies.

"What she doesn't know won't hurt her," Jack whispered conspiratorially to Sandy, sneaking one of the chocolate chip ones. He broke a bit off for the puffin but wasn't surprised when she turned her head away. "More for me."

"I can hear you eating sugar!"

Jack shook his head fondly. "Hey, Sandy, quick question?"

Sandy nodded.

"Where do puffins usually go during winter?"

 

* * *

 

Jack landed gently on the Atlantic coast of Morocco. It had taken a while, but with Sandy's help he'd managed to find a flock of puffins wintering there. He didn't know if they were the same ones his puffin had been with, but in the end he figured it wasn't really all that important.

The winter here wasn't as cold as he would have preferred, but at least it wasn't hot and he was sure the puffins would enjoy it.

It had taken a good several weeks for the puffin's wing to heal and a few practice sessions for her to get used to flying again after being grounded for so long, but Jack was confident she'd be fine now. He gently set her down on the ground and gave her a gentle push in the direction of the other puffins chilling on the coast.

"Go on," he coaxed. "Go make some friends."

She seemed reluctant, much like a child on their first day of school, so Jack relented to walking her over; moving slowly so as not to startle the other birds. They watched him warily as he approached but didn't fly away. A win if you asked Jack.

The puffin was accepted fairly quickly by the group, and Jack wondered if they were her original flock after all. While she was distracted, he slowly back peddled to give them some space.

"I'll see you around," he called out to her, waving goodbye.

She called back in her own way, flapping her wings and ruffling her feathers.

Jack wasn't overly surprised the following year at the end of autumn to find a flock of puffins still in Greenland – one in particular very happy to see him.


	80. Not Spying on a Not-Date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry, you guys. I've been really busy with assignments (which I am still busy with, so don't expect another update soon) and my internet is down at home and probably will continue to be so for the extended future (I'm using uni internet. Sshhh)
> 
> In any case, this is a request from SanctuaryInMusic. Sorry it took so long.
> 
> Disclaimed.

"So hey, how's about a snow day on Friday – give you kids a long weekend?" Jack followed the group of teens from the trees, jumping from branch to branch with casual grace. They could hardly be called kids these days – still believers or not – but Jack still did it. Mostly to annoy them. Partially to squash the sadness that accompanied the thought that they were growing up.

"Actually," Jamie began hesitantly. The boys stopped, as did Jack. "Could you… maybe… go a little easy on the snow on Friday? Just so that we can still go out and stuff."

Jack raised a brow at the unusual request and jumped down to the pavement. It wasn't like Jamie to turn down a snow day.

"He has a date," Claude said in a conspiratorial whisper, leaning in closer to Jack.

"It's not a date!" Jamie cried, not liking the smirk that was slowly working its way across Jack's face. It wasn't a smirk he'd been on the receiving end of very often, but it was one he knew all too well, nevertheless. In short, nothing good ever accompanied that smirk.

"They're going to see that new horror movie that came out," Caleb added, completely ignoring Jamie's protest. "Does that sound like a date to you?"

"I dunno, that kinda sounds like a date to me," Monty replied.

"Not helping," Jamie deadpanned.

"Well, kiddo, if you've got a date then I'll have to go easy on the snow; wouldn't want you to have to cancel," Jack grinned, slinging an arm around Jamie's shoulders.

"It's _not_ a date," Jamie stressed. "…And why doesn't that reassure me at all?"

"I'm wounded you would think I would do something to jeopardise your night," Jack gasped in mock hurt. Jamie just rolled his eyes. "How about a snow day on Monday, then? That way you still get a long weekend."

"Yeah!" the twins high-fived each other. "Thanks, Jack!"

"You're welcome," Jack bowed. "Tis my duty to deliver fun to the needy and deter the horrors and boredom of school," he said in a false accent.

Jamie snorted, shoving him slightly, earning a laugh from the winter spirit.

 

* * *

 

Jack landed soundlessly on Jamie's windowsill on Friday evening and peered in through the partially frosted glass. The room on the inside was as tidy as always (for a teenager, Jamie certainly didn't act like one), and conspicuously Jamie-less.

"Don't tell me I missed him!" Jack groaned.

As if having been attracted by the sound of his suffering, a blonde head peered in through the doorway.

"Hey, Jack!" Sophie beamed at him, crossing the room to unlatch the window.

Jack slipped in with a grateful smile. "Hi, Soph! How's it going?"

"Not bad. If you're looking for Jamie, you just missed him."

"Am I that obvious?"

Sophie raised a brow. "For one thing, you're sitting in his window," she pointed out. "But yes. We were all expecting you to turn up. Jamie asked me to tell you not to 'help'."

Jack chuckled. "Where's the fun in that?"

"I think he's worried you might accidentally mess things up," she shrugged.

"Ah, he has such little faith for someone with so much belief."

"But, if you're worried, they went to the cinema on Main street," Sophie said in a tone far too casual to have been anything but fake. His suspicion was confirmed when she smirked at him over her shoulder as she headed back to the door. Jack felt his own mouth twitch into a matching expression.

"Nah, I'm not worried," he waved flippantly. "I might just go frost some trees and windows or something. Catch you later, Soph!" he called, before a gust of wind swept him from the sill and up into the air above the neighbourhood.

He really wasn't worried, but there was no harm in checking up on the kid, right? Just to make sure everything was going well. Yeah. He'd go and make sure everything was going smoothly and that they were enjoying themselves. That was all. Absolutely no meddling. Nope. And, so that he wouldn't be lying to Sophie, he froze a few things on the way.

It was easy enough to check the board to see what theatre the movie was playing in and sneak in considering pretty much nobody could see him. And those that could – all kids except for a few teenagers that had started believing in him thanks to Jamie and his friends – grinned and waved but didn't hinder him.

Jack perched himself on the back of a chair in the back row and scanned the heads of the people around him, trying to locate Jamie amongst them. Ah, there he was; a few rows in front of him. Jack suspected the girl seated beside him was his 'not-a-date'. Pfft. Of course it was a date. Jack rolled his eyes fondly.

From the looks of things the movie was a short ways in, and both were completely focused on it, eating popcorn distractedly. They didn't look particularly… cosy. Jack didn't know much about dates, but from what he'd seen in movies they were supposed to be more intimate than that… right? He searched the theatre for another couple for reference, spotting two people cuddled up together off to the side. Yeah, like that.

Maybe they just needed a little help; just a nudge to push them in the right direction. Sophie's words came unbidden to the forefront of his mind. Jamie didn't want him to help. No, that wasn't it. Jamie didn't want him to ruin anything. As if he was going to ruin the night for them. Pitch might say he made a mess of everything, but he'd more than proven that to be wrong.

Mind made up, Jack subtly lowered the temperature in the theatre, causing Jamie's date to hug herself against the chill. Jamie offered her his jacket, glancing around the room in suspicion. Jack made sure to duck down behind the seats to avoid detection. He made sure to wait for a minute or two before risking a peek.

 _Damn_ , he mentally cursed when it was clear his attempt hadn't had the desired result. Well, it _was_ supposed to be a horror movie; maybe it would do the job for him.

As it turned out, Jamie's date was apparently fearless. The whole time she'd only given a few gasps here and maybe a flinch there. Jack himself was more freaked out than she was and he'd gone up against the Boogieman, for crying out loud! He glanced over at the 'model-couple'. Yep, they were holding each other as they stared at the screen in horror, just like they did in the movies. So what was different? It was certainly something to ponder on.

Eventually the movie ended and Jack stayed hidden while the theatre was vacated before following after the mob.

"Do you wanna get something to eat?" he heard Jamie ask.

The girl replied in the affirmative and the duo headed out of the cinema and onto the street. Jack waited until they were out of sight before following. He paused where he was crouched on a well-concealed tree branch as they entered a diner further down the street.

A diner with lots of windows.

Now this could be seen as a good or bad thing, depending on where you stood. On the plus side, Jack could clearly see the two of them in their window seat from where he was not spying on them, but on the downside he couldn't give them that extra push they so obviously needed. At least, not without trying to sneak in, which would result in Jamie spotting him and yelling at him for following and 'why didn't you listen to Sophie' blah blah blah. And that would as good as end their 'not date' then and there. If not least because chances were the girl wouldn't be able to see him and would therefore think poor Jamie insane.

And so Jack was faced with a debacle. What to do, what to do? Maybe – and it was horrifying and risky – he would just have to let things play out and see how it went unattended. Even the thought of it made him grimace, but what choice did he have? And–

Wait. Hang on. Was that 'model couple' entering the diner? It was! And they were taking a seat in the booth beside Jamie's. Perfect! The kids would be able to see what proper dates were supposed to look like and they could learn from example.

Perhaps it was wishful thinking, though. Because while model-couple made goo-goo eyes at each other and fed each other fries and the like, Jamie and his not-date ate like civilised adults making polite conversation. This wouldn't do. This wouldn't do _at all_. Something had to be done. And if the kids couldn't figure it out for themselves, then Jack supposed it was his responsibility as a Guardian and as Jamie's friend/brother/great-great-etc uncle.

Now the only problem remained of what, exactly, he could do to remedy the situation.

Scanning the interior of the place the best he could from his position, Jack's eyes fell on something he should have expected. Something perfect.

"Now let's just hope there's a back door," he muttered to himself, willing the wind to fly him around the building, being sure to keep out of sight of the windows.

There was, thankfully, a backdoor (and upon reflection it would have been weird if there wasn't) and, even better, it was unlocked. Jack opened it only just enough to slip inside so as not to attract too much attention. Not that the kitchen workers could see him, but better safe than sorry.

The kitchen was far too hot for his liking, and Jack was more than happy when he followed a waitress out through another door and into the main dining area, being sure to keep low to the ground and hiding behind every bench or concealing obstacle he could find. Now he just had to get across the room without Jamie spotting him (or anyone else, but from the looks of things there were no kids in the diner).

But that was easier said than done. Jack was starting to wonder if Jamie had a sixth sense – always able to tell when the winter spirit was around – and Jack had suffered through several close-calls (which involved him rolling to hide beneath tables and behind customers, and on one occasion ducking into a certain taboo doorway that he should have paid more attention to before entering and of which will never be spoken again) and at least one mini-heart attack before he reached his destination and huddled in the shadows out of sight.

He cast a quick glance at Jamie and his 'not-date', noting that they were still failing at 'not-dating', while the model-couple were getting everything right to the point that Jack was starting to get embarrassed watching. Poor kids. They still needed his help. He was no Cupid, but he figured he was as close as the two lost, deprived souls were going to get. Fishing around in his pocket, he happily located several coins he'd picked up on his travels and set his plan into motion.

The jukebox was three plays for a dollar, Jack was happy to find, and he cheerily selected three songs from the list that he recognised as being particularly romantic after inserting the money, before ducking back down out of sight to observe his handiwork.

The first song apparently had no effect. Jack didn't let it bother him too much – they probably had to get into the feel of it or something – but after the second and finally the third went by without much more than a raised eyebrow and a brief glance at the jukebox, Jack was starting to run out of ideas. If not even music could save this date, what else could he do? If the model-couple were anything to go by, Jamie's date should definitely have been further along than it was.

He really wasn't cut out for this romance stuff, he realised. He briefly entertained the thought of going to find Cupid for help, but dismissed the idea quickly since he didn't even know where the guy went most of the time (and also because they weren't on the best of terms after Jack had made it his personal duty to sabotage his work on Valentine's Day after a certain narcissistic incident involving an arrow and a blindfold).

He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't even realise that Jamie and his date were leaving until he heard the bell on the door chime. Jack waited until they were a short ways down the street before following. There was still hope he could fix things for his first believer. And he was going to try or his name wasn't Jack Frost.

 

* * *

 

Jamie was getting suspicious. That much was obvious. True, the light snowfall Jack had conjured wasn't exactly subtle… and neither was that patch of ice he'd deliberately sent under the girl's feet so that Jamie could catch her when she stumbled… or the clearing of clouds so that the moon could easily be seen… _or_ the various frost patterns he– well, you get the point. And now Jamie was glaring suspiciously at their surroundings, searching, Jack knew, for him. But as if he was going to show himself.

Despite the repeated failures – and there were more than he was really willing to acknowledge – Jack still hadn't given up hope that the kid's date could be saved. But he really was running out of options. And if he wasn't careful, Jamie was going to catch him.

Before Jack knew it, he'd run out of time; Jamie was walking the girl home. The winter spirit felt like he'd failed, in a way, but he decided the two of them must be super incompatible for none of his ingenious attempts to have worked. When the door finally closed and Jamie cast a knowing and pointed (although he was smiling slightly) look at his surroundings, Jack figured it was probably time to get going.

"Alright, Jack, I know you're there," Jamie called.

Jack smiled to himself (the kid was so smart) before letting the wind silently carry him away and back towards the Bennett household. Maybe he could pretend he'd never left.

"How'd it go?" Sophie asked, and Jack wasn't really all that surprised to find her sitting on Jamie's bed as he climbed in through the window, as though she'd been expecting him (which, obviously, she had).

"They're too stubborn for their own good," Jack sighed, following her out of the room and down the hall to her own.

Sophie merely smiled knowingly. "I take it it didn't work?"

"Not even a little bit."

"What happened?" she asked without looking at him, grabbing a notebook and a bunch of textbooks from her desk and sprawling both them and herself across her bed.

Jack moved to sit beside her, peering over her shoulder at her homework as he regaled her with the tale of his failed mission.

"Oh well," she shrugged when he'd finished, casually writing out one of the questions from her book without really paying attention to it. "Maybe next time."

"Maybe you should come along next time."

"Maybe. Do you know anything about the American Revolution?"

"What do you want to know?"

"We have to–"

"Hey, Soph," Jamie's head suddenly appeared in the doorway. He quickly spotted Jack and made a face that was somehow a mixture of a frown and amusement. "Hey, Jack."

"Hey, Jamie," the two on the bed greeted. Then Sophie added, "How'd your date go?"

"First of all, it wasn't a date," Jamie enunciated. "And secondly, why don't you ask Jack?"

"Why would I know?" Jack asked innocently.

Jamie gave him a pointed look.

"Jack's been here helping me with my homework," Sophie added, her expression of such genuine confusion that even Jack almost fell for it. Well, it wasn't a complete lie. He had been about to help.

"Uh-huh," Jamie said, completely unconvinced. "So all those ice-related things had nothing to do with you."

"Hey, kiddo, it's winter," Jack shrugged. "You've gotta expect there to be ice around. Kinda comes with the territory."

"That's funny, cause I could have sworn they were really bad attempts at trying to 'help'."

"Well, _if_ I had helped, they wouldn't have been bad attempts, ergo it couldn't have been me," Jack said brightly. Again, not a lie. If he had helped they would have been good attempts. But he hadn't helped. He had failed. The two of them were just too stubborn.

Jamie clearly still didn't believe a word of it. It was understandable, really, considering the similar situations in the past the boy had had to deal with. And he knew from experience that Jack would admit nothing. (Unless he'd succeeded, in which case he would make sure Jamie knew exactly why things had gone well).

"Well then," the teen said carefully. "It's just as well it was just a couple of friends hanging out and not a date, huh?"

"Lucky," Jack and Sophie agreed.

Jamie lingered a moment longer to watch them suspiciously before ducking back out into the hallway to put his stuff away. As soon as he was gone, Sophie dropped all pretences of being productive and, snickering, high-fived the winter spirit beside her.


	81. The Corrupted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good gravy this thing is long. So, dying with exams, but I managed to get this one out! (Sorry, technically it's not last week anymore ^^;) I hope I didn't horribly butcher your baby, Guardian of Loyalty! Also, I'm taking a lot of privileges here, so bear with me... book references and stuff I just made up... roll with it?
> 
> Oh, and this is kinda an AU - a movie deviation. You should be able to pick which scene pretty easily.
> 
> Anywho, it's now almost 2am so I'm going to bed.

"It's over Pitch," Jack said coldly, holding his staff out before him as he and the Guardians closed in on their cornered enemy. "There's no place to hide."

Pitch smirked at the advancing cluster of do-gooders. Their stupidity was almost painful. No place to hide? There was _always_ a place to hide; especially when the alley they stood in was practically draped with shadows. Without even a remark in retaliation to the winter spirit's taunt, Pitch slipped into one of the many patches of darkness, blending in so perfectly that he was completely invisible.

The Guardians were instantly on the defensive, turning slowly on the spot as they watched multiple silhouettes of the Nightmare King dance across the walls around them, trying in vain to figure out where next he would appear. It was futile, as they all knew; Pitch was as unpredictable as the Man in the Moon himself.

In their searching they turned their backs on the place he'd been. Which, of course, made it the perfect place for him to reappear. In one fluid movement he was back in solid form and a scythe of nightmares and pure fear appeared in his hands. With a single swing it arched silently through the night air, point aimed directly for the biggest metaphorical thorn in his side.

"Jack, look out!" Bunnymund cried, the first to turn back and spot the Boogieman.

Jack spun around at the shout, eyes widening as he registered the wicked blade coming straight for him. There was no way he could move out of the way in time, nor could he lift his staff in defence. Jack knew this, Bunny knew this, the other two, realising the danger, knew this. And, most importantly, Pitch knew this. And he revelled in it.

Blade pierced flesh and an agonised scream of pain shattered the silence almost as quickly as it had fallen. The scythe dissolved in a puff of inky black sand and liquid shadow, descending over the boy's body and into the wound as though it had a mind of its own. Jack was on his knees in a heartbeat, a hand gripping tersely at the freely bleeding wound in his chest as a combination of blood and darkness dribbled from the corner of his mouth. Slowly, painfully slowly, the shadows started to creep across his clothes, his skin, his hair, and everything it touched was rendered the same endless black. His skin turned a deathly grey, unnatural even for his pale complexion. Even his eyes, once such a vibrant blue, were reduced to bottomless pits of nothingness.

It was over in seconds. The boy's cries broke off abruptly and the tension slipped from his terse muscles, leaving him slumped and kneeling in the middle of the alleyway.

Pitch laughed in sadistic pleasure at both the state of the once defiant winter spirit and the expressions of horror on the faces of the so-called Guardians.

"Jack!" Tooth's voice was strained as she reached a hand towards him, as though to grab him, but she faltered, frozen in place like her allies.

Jack didn't reply, didn't so much as twitch at the call of his name. The fairy, face slack with horror and her eyes wet, glanced over at the Pooka. This was not the first time he'd borne witness to something like this, she knew.

"How?!" North demanded, voicing the question they were all thinking. "The Fearlings were all destroyed!"

"Did you honestly think you could kill fear?" Pitch sneered. "I'll admit Jack Frost was hardly my first choice, but he has proven himself to be a valuable asset; when he's fighting on the right side, of course."

"Change him back!" Tooth ordered, her voice of steely anger that contradicted the deep resounding sorrow reflected in her eyes.

"Or what?"

Pitch narrowly avoided the boomerang suddenly flung his way, disappearing into the shadows only to re-emerge a few paces away. Bunny was the epitome of rage as he caught the projectile.

"Change him back!" he seethed, launching the piece of wood once again.

It barely made it halfway to its target before it was caught mid-air by a small, lifeless hand. Jack, now on his feet, watched expressionlessly as frost coated the polished surface.

"Aw, did I strike a nerve?" Pitch asked mockingly. "You really are pathetic. You couldn't save those giant hairballs and you couldn't save Jack Frost."

Bunny practically writhed at the offhanded blow. "Listen here you bloody–"

"Now Jack," Pitch continued, completely ignoring the rabbit. Jack's slack gaze turned in his direction. "I want you to show them exactly why they should never have gotten in my way."

The boomerang clattered to the ground as Jack released his grip, opting instead to place both hands on his still frost-covered staff. Without word or warning he suddenly launched himself at the Guardians.

"You dare call yourselves Guardians," Pitch continued in the background with a sinister Cheshire grin as Bunny leapt out of the way of a frigid ice blast, " _protectors_ of children, and yet here you are, unable to even save one. Where were you for those three hundred years of his existence? Where were you when Jack Frost, an immortal _child_ , needed you the most?"

North blocked the uppercut Jack sent his way with the blunt edge of his sword, but couldn't bring himself to follow through with a blow of his own. The being before him may have been a Fearling, but more importantly it was also _Jack_ ; a boy he hadn't spent much thought on before a few days ago, but who now was a precious member of his 'family', even if he hadn't been officially incorporated into the Guardians yet. And as such, he couldn't bear to hurt him, Fearling or not; especially when there was still a chance they could save him. There _had_ to be a chance. North wasn't going to accept no for an answer; both he and the others had a lot to make up for – three hundred years, in fact – and they couldn't do that if Jack was lost to them.

"Oh, that's right," Pitch mused. "You were hidden away, so focused on protecting the children of the world that you neglected to notice the one right under your nose."

North ground his teeth, trying not to let the truth of Pitch's words distract him from the matter at hand. Because whether he liked it or not the shadow man was right. Jack had said himself that he'd tried to 'bust into' the Workshop multiple times. How many chances to get to know the boy had he missed out on? How much had his careless disregard for the younger spirit made Jack suffer?

"He was a child, too, Jack Frost. A child who _died_ doing _your_ job. And yet you still abandoned him like he was worthless. In fact, if it wasn't for me, he would still be alone and forgotten; not just by you, sworn by oath to protect him, but also the very Man in the Moon who forced this life on him in the first place."

Tooth bit back a sob that struggled to force its way from her throat at the words. She hadn't known Jack had died, though she didn't doubt the truth of it – Pitch had a nasty knack for learning such things – nor did she know he'd been ignorant of the memories of his past. But that didn't matter, in the end, did it? Because Pitch was right; they'd abandoned him, left him to fend for himself when he was still very much one of the children they'd devoted their lives to protecting. And they'd failed him. But no. She was going to make up for it. _They_ were going to make up for it. Even if it took the rest of eternity to do so.

 _I'm not giving up on you_ , she silently vowed, even as she ducked under the swing of Jack's staff. She was in the prime position to deliver a swift kick to his solar plexus but didn't. She couldn't hurt the boy she'd grown so fond of; Fearling or not.

"You failed Jack Frost," Pitch spat in disgust, as though he was genuinely angry on Jack's behalf. "You've failed him for three hundred years and you've failed him now. You failed a _child_! And now," his voice grew soft, as if he were placating a crying child and not condemning the three remaining Guardians, "that failure will be your downfall."

Bunny swiftly ducked down and blocked what would have been a very painful blow to the head before using his superior strength to push Jack out of range. The boy – or what was left of him – staggered a few steps before righting himself and charging again.

A few days ago, when the whole Easter disaster had started, he had hated Jack Frost with a passion that was unbecoming of a Guardian of Childhood, and he sure as hell hadn't found it difficult to let the brat know it. But now, after having seen a side to the kid (and the acknowledgement that he _was_ a kid just made his actions seem so much worse – three hundred years old or not) he hadn't known was there, well, it was plain to see there was more to Jack Frost than what met the eye. Sure, he was stubborn, annoying, had absolutely no respect for authority, and was just an all-round brat, but under that was someone who deeply cared for children, who would protect them at all costs. And anyone who cared that much about the ankle-biters of the world deserved a chance, at least. Jack Frost deserved a chance; a chance Bunny had been too prideful to give him. And he would get that chance if it was the last thing Bunny ever did. He refused to lose anyone to the Fearlings ever again; bloody pain in the neck or not. He had to have hope that they could find a way to save the winter spirit. And, being the Guardian of Hope, it was certainly the very least he could do.

The last Pooka shifted his weight in preparation to take the next attack coming his way. But the blow never came. They all watched in shock as Jack suddenly stumbled, his teeth gritted together in what appeared to be pain. Even Pitch, who had been watching with nothing short of excitement, had stopped laughing and was frowning at the scene.

"Fight it, Jack!" North bellowed in something akin to pride.

Bunny's eyes widened as he glanced from North back to Jack. It did _look_ like he was fighting the Fearling's influence. Maybe he could be saved after all!

Pitch's responding laugh, the laugh of a man completely sure of himself, sent Bunny's heart plummeting.

"Don't you see?" the Nightmare King cried in glee. "He can't! What precious happy memories could he possibly have from three hundred years of isolation, abandonment, and invisibility that are strong enough to fight the influence of pure fear?"

Tooth's stern façade crumbled at the words – memories were _her_ forte. She could have _helped him_. She could have spared him so much pain! The first tears slipped unbidden from her overflowing eyes and she swiped them furiously with the back of her hand. It wouldn't do for the Queen of the Tooth Fairy Armies to weep before the likes of Pitch Black.

"I know you are strong enough," North encouraged, deliberately ignoring Pitch's taunts. "Fight it, Jack!"

Jack clutched at his head as the shadows creeping across his body writhed. To anyone who looked it appeared the Fearling was losing the battle of wills. Even Pitch's self-assured smirk had slipped and the three Guardians took courage from it.

"Such a shame," Pitch suddenly sighed. "I had hoped you would have been the perfect Fearling Prince. But I suppose I should have expected as much, what with you being quite literally a spirit. Do be sure to destroy the three of them before you destroy yourself, Jack."

"What're ya talkin' about?!" Bunny demanded, pointing his boomerang at Pitch even as he shot a quick look at Jack.

Pitch looked him over with bored contempt. "Exactly what I said, rabbit."

Tooth cried out as ice struck her in the chest, sending her sailing through the air only to crash heavily to the concrete some hundred metres or so away. Jack barely batted an eye at what he'd done before moving on to face North, easily knocking one of the two sabres from the large man's hands when the latter refused to fight back.

Bunny's eyes widened in realisation as he watched the way Jack moved – stiffly and painfully – and the way the shadows consuming him flickered, smothering him all the more and yet without the complete effect he knew them to have. He knew all too well the way Fearlings worked, devouring the soul and inhabiting the body that remained, and it was nothing like this. He was missing something.

Pitch's words echoed in his mind and a pit of dread settled in his stomach. Jack had died. He wasn't just a spirit in the supernatural sense of the word, but also in the _literal_ sense. He _was_ a soul. And for him to be taken over by something as destructive as a Fearling… well, when the job was done there wasn't going to be anything left for the Fearling to inhabit. It would die. But so would Jack. Again. And this time not even the Man in the Moon could save him.

"No!" Bunny snapped. "There has to be a way to fix this! Turn 'im back!"

"Now why would I want to do that?" Pitch asked, a humorous glint in his golden eyes. "I–"

Whatever he'd been about to say was cut off as a string of golden sand shot out from beyond the back wall and wrapped itself firmly around his torso, flinging him up into the air and away like a fly caught on the tongue of a frog. Bunny stared for a moment, slowly trying to process what had happened before, leaving North and Tooth alone with Jack, he raced in the direction the Boogieman had gone. He may have not wanted to admit it, but he knew Pitch was right; Jack would not be able to fight the Fearling off completely. Not on his own, at least.

The sight he found when he turned the corner was like a light in the dark (literally, actually). Sanderson Mansnoozie floated before him, looking rather pleased with himself as he surveyed Pitch, unconscious in the snow, dreaming of butterflies.

"Mate, aren't you a sight for sore eyes," Bunny sighed in relief.

Sandy smiled at him, a smile the Pooka had feared he'd never see again.

…Speaking of smiles he'd never see again, "Please tell me you know how to get rid of a Fearling."

Sandy looked shocked at the request and a dozen or so images flashed above him so quickly Bunny almost didn't catch what the small man was trying to say.

"It's Jack, he–"

A map and a question mark followed with a great sense of urgency.

"Back there," Bunny pointed, "in that alleyway."

The words were barely out of his mouth before Sandy was hurrying in the direction he'd indicated. Bunny quickly took up the rear, catching up easily.

Things were, unsurprisingly, not very different from when he'd left. Tooth had gotten back up and she and North were trying to fight off Jack – who was looking weaker than before – without actually hurting him. Without a word of greeting, Sandy wrapped Jack in a stream of sand, much like he had with Pitch, and pulled him out of the fight.

Jack struggled against the bonds, trying in vain to free himself. Sandy looked him over with a great deal of sadness.

"Sandy!" North breathed in joy. Tooth likewise looked relieved.

"Can you help him?" she asked, glancing uncertainly at Jack.

Sandy followed her gaze and bit his lip. He'd never known of anyone who'd overcome Fearling possession; it was literally like trying to overcome pure fear, and it was clear that Jack didn't have enough happy memories strong enough to win the fight. But maybe if he gave the boy a helping hand with his dream sand… it was worth a shot, right? All he had to do was flush out the Fearling and destroy it. How hard could it be?

 _Very hard_ , his mind whispered, and he forcefully shoved that voice aside.

Instead of answering his friends who were still awaiting a reply, Sandy set his plan into action, sending a significant amount of dream sand raining down over Jack's head. The boy instantly slumped under the pull of sleep, a glittering golden boy and girl skating joyfully across the surface of a frozen pond. The image lasted for all of two seconds before black began to overcome the gold, turning it into a nightmare. Sandy quickly increased the amount of dream sand, but as soon as he cut off the stream the same thing happened.

"It's not working," Tooth noted, sounding distraught. "Is it because of belief?!"

Belief! That was it! Sandy temporarily abandoned his attempts and focused on sending good dreams out as far and wide as he possibly could, ignoring the questions and protests of his friends. If he could increase the amount of belief in both himself and the Guardians, it should increase his abilities and maybe then he could help the younger spirit.

It didn't take long – already he could feel his strength returning. Content in the surety that the dreams would continue to spread unaided, Sandy returned his attention to the nightmare playing out above Jack's head. Focusing as much positive energy into his powers as he could, Sandy sent yet another flood of dream sand to Jack, but this time he didn't cut the connection, instead keeping it flowing.

Despite the pleasant dreams, Jack's whole body shuddered under the Sandman's magic. The shadows cloaking him rippled and writhed, trying to fight the dream sand that had invaded their host. The golden dream flickered with darkness and Sandy fought back, pinning his positive magic against the darkness and fear of the Fearling.

"Is it workin'?" Bunny asked.

It was a complicated question to answer, but the Sandman tried to make himself understood nonetheless. It _was_ working, but it was going to take much longer than he'd like; the Fearling was stronger than Jack, but in the long run he thought his dream sand would give the winter spirit enough of a push to overcome it. It was just going to take time.

"Then we take him back to Pole," North said. "Make him comfortable, yes?"

"What about Pitch?" Tooth frowned.

"He's knocked out around the corner," Bunny informed her.

"I will have yetis grab him and make sure children get home safe," North decided, reaching into his coat and pulling out a snow globe. "Go on ahead, I will meet you back at Workshop."

"Are you sure?" Tooth wrung her hands together.

"Take care of Jack," the Cossack said in way of parting, heading out of the alleyway and disappearing around the corner.

"Let's get goin' then," Bunny said, holding up the snow globe. "North's Workshop."

As the snow globe smashed against the concrete ground a large swirling portal opened up. The Pooka carefully lifted Jack and, side by side with the Sandman, entered the portal, the Tooth Fairy taking up the rear.

 

* * *

 

It had been two straight days since they'd taken Jack back to the North Pole and in that time Sandy had not slept once, instead diligently sitting by the bed where Jack Frost lay and keeping up a constant flow of dream sand to help try to combat the Fearling before it could completely corrupt and/or destroy the winter spirit beyond redemption.

Sandy supposed it was a good thing he didn't really need to sleep (that didn't mean he didn't enjoy it, though), but he was definitely starting to feel the toll of such a constant focus and use of his powers. At least when he was travelling around the world delivering dreams to children he could nod off and let the sand do its work unaided, but in this situation, the moment he stopped concentrating the Fearling started gaining the upper hand.

Over the last half day or so, however, it was starting to look like they were nearing the end. The shadows that had seemed to consume Jack's body had receded somewhat, and his skin was no longer as grey as it had been, but the pale complexion he was so used to seeing on the boy. It was still deathly, but a healthier deathly. …For Jack, at least. On anyone else the pigment would have been rather concerning.

Jack's face contorted in a slight grimace, prompting Sandy to increase his powers for the umpteenth time. He was almost there. The Fearling was weak. All they really needed was for Jack to fight back. Sandy had done all that he could do in keeping the Fearling at bay and providing the winter spirit with something happy to focus on, but in the end all the hard work was down to Jack. He mentally encouraged the boy as once again he shifted the dream into something else before it could be corrupted by fear.

A surge of guilt washed over him as he watched the boy, kept unconscious by his magic. Jack didn't have many happy memories, and Sandy couldn't help but wonder if he could have helped change that had he known the winter spirit wasn't as carefree as he liked to appear. How different would things have been if he'd taken the time out from his busy schedule to interact with the boy beyond a passing wave? What if he'd struck up a conversation? Sparked a friendship? Maybe then much of Easter's events wouldn't have happened.

The fact was that, while it was up to Jack to finish the job of overcoming the fear that plagued him, Sandy wasn't sure that he could, or even that he'd _want_ to. He didn't think Jack to be the type to just give up, but over the whole time he'd been working Jack had never once shown sign that he was fighting back. He didn't want to admit it, but he was scared.

 

* * *

 

Jack was dreaming.

At least, he was pretty sure he was dreaming. It certainly felt like a dream. The fear, though, that coursed through him every now and again gave him doubt. _That_ certainly felt real.

At that very moment he was flying on the wind over cities and towns, over forests and oceans, exulting in the exhilaration of it all. It was pure, unadulterated joy. He was completely free, unbound by responsibility or care. Free from worries or fears, free from what ifs and whys. It was a perfect moment.

But then he felt that sudden jolt of fear and suddenly he was falling, the wind having died underneath him. He landed on a sidewalk in a bustling city, forced to dodge and weave between the busy people going about their day lest one of them walk through him like they had so often before. No one could see him, he remembered. Flying may have given him a temporary reprieve, but he did still have worries and fears. And he definitely had whys. There was no moon in the overcast sky to turn his questions to, not that he ever got a reply when he did, and so he instead focused on the wind, silently beckoning it to take him away.

Terror gripped him when he realised it didn't reply. He couldn't fly!

"Wind!" he called, but no sound escaped his throat. Distracted by the unexpected set-back, he wasn't prepared for the wave of people that passed through him like he wasn't even there.

" _You're invisible, mate. It's like you don't even exist_ ," Bunny's voice echoed in his head.

 _No. No,_ he gasped. This couldn't be happening. Was he ceasing to exist? Had he lost even the small comfort of his powers? In a surge of hope he tried to send a spiral of ice across the pavement beneath his feet with the tip of his staff, but to his utter horror nothing happened. Even the ice that had adorned his staff was missing, making the stick look exactly that; old and feeble, like it could be snapped as easily as Pitch already had done.

But then, like so many times before, everything shifted. Suddenly he found himself standing on a vast surface of ice, a pair of hand-made ice skates adorning his feet. The beautiful sound of a girl's laughter caught his attention and he looked up sharply as his sister skated by, unsteady but enjoying herself nonetheless.

"Jack!" she called out to him. "Skate with me, Jack!"

Jack felt a grin stretch across his face as he obeyed, chasing after her with all the grace he had acquired in his three hundred year existence. Together they went around and around, each trying to outmatch the other, neither bothered by the cold biting at their exposed faces and hands.

This was the way that day should have gone so long ago. Full of joy and fun. But then, of course, the moment had to be ruined. He really should have seen it coming.

A loud crack permeated the air, cutting the laughter short in a heartbeat. There was no time for confessions or reassurances. One second the ice was solid, the next there was a gaping hole and his sister was gone.

"No!" he cried, making to fling himself toward the gap, fully intending to dive down after her. But he couldn't move. Couldn't speak. All he could do was watch as the cracks in the ice started sealing over, the hole diminishing the more time passed until it was like it had never broken in the first place. His heart raced in his chest and tears sprung in his eyes. "It should have been me!" he wanted to cry. He wanted to scream, to shout at the passive moon somewhere way above. He wanted someone – something – to blame. But there was only himself.

"It should have been you."

Jack spun, belatedly realising he could move again. What he saw made him freeze again. There was a boy standing on the ice, barefoot and dressed only in a blue hoodie and threadbare pants. His white hair blended in perfectly with the surrounding snow and ice.

"You're… me?" he found himself asking.

"You should have saved her," the boy that was him but wasn't said, not answering the question.

"No, no," Jack babbled. "It… it _was_ me." It _had been_ him. This wasn't real. It was just a dream. It wasn't real. It wasn't real.

"It was you who fell through the ice, yes," the other Jack agreed, taking a few steps forward. With each one his appearance slowly changed until he looked exactly as Jack remembered he had before he'd died. "But you didn't save her."

"I… I don't…"

"Understand? Shall I spell it out for you then?"

Jack said nothing.

"You may have saved her from dying, but you seem to have forgotten that she had to watch _you_ die. She had to live out the rest of her life with that memory, knowing that you sacrificed yourself for her and that it was _her fault_."

"No!"

"No? Who was the one that wanted to go skating even though it was too early in the season and the ice was too thin? Who was the one who didn't wait until you'd checked before racing off? It was _her!_ "

"No! It wasn't her fault!"

"And of course you had to be the perfect hero, her knight in shining armour. But what did that bring? A meaningless sacrifice that left her blaming herself for the rest of her miserable life. She _idolised you_! And you just _left her_."

Jack shook his head, fighting against the tears burning in his eyes. It was a lie, they were all lies. They had to be. He couldn't afford to let himself believe that she had suffered because of him. He had saved her! He couldn't stand the thought that his act of good will had condemned her.

"But you don't need her," the other him was saying, his voice going from harsh to comforting even as his appearance changed again to monochrome. "You didn't need her for three hundred years and you don't need her now." He continued forward again, hand outstretched in beckoning. "Just us. Who else stood by you for all those years than me and the wind? You've never needed anyone else. Come with me, it's time to stop fighting. It's time to rest now. It doesn't have to hurt anymore."

He was sorely tempted to accept the offer.

"You don't have to worry, everything will be okay. No more pain, no more loneliness. Come, Jack."

Oh how he wished he could. How many times over his three hundred years had he wished for it all to just go away? How many times had he wanted the pain of being alone and invisible to end? Unbidden, his hand reached out for the other Jack's.

"That's it," the other him smiled. "No more fear. _I_ believe in you."

The words sparked something in him and he froze. No, fear wasn't something that could be erased, wasn't something that _should_ be erased. And these promises were too sweet, too good to be true. He had to remind himself that it wasn't real. It was nothing more than a dream.

"No," he said, finding his voice.

The other Jack's expression fell to a carefully blank slate, but his hand remained in the air. "No?"

"No. I don't have time to rest. I'm a Guardian, and I have a job to do. I don't have time to wallow in self-pity. And I'm not alone." Not anymore.

Not-him snarled, and without warning suddenly struck out with his own shadowy replica of his staff. Jack brought his own up to block the blow, surprised to find it in his hand where it always was when he was sure it hadn't been there a moment ago.

"A poor decision," the thing that wasn't him hissed. "You should have accepted the offer; things would have been… less painful for you."

"I'm not afraid of you," Jack declared, swinging at it with his staff, feeling the pleasant thrum of power through the aged wood as frost patterns burst to life along its length. And since when did he let other people tell him what to do, anyway?

Feeling suddenly revitalised, Jack channelled his powers through his staff, sending a blast of ice towards the thing. It managed to dodge out of the way, charging forward with reckless abandon. Jack wasn't prepared for such an action and faltered, giving it enough time to grab his forearm. Inky shadows shot across the appendage, creeping up his arm and starting to spread to the rest of him. He struggled to pull away but the thing's grip was like a vice. Fear swelled in his chest and the thing grinned victoriously.

In a last-ditch effort, Jack formed a snowball in his free hand and slapped it into the twisted version's face. The copy staggered backwards with an angry cry and it was enough for Jack to pull himself free and place some distance between them.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

The creature wiped the excess snow from its face, laughing cruelly all the while. "I'm _you_!" it sneered. "I'm your fear. I am the part of you that you don't want to face. And I am what will destroy you."

Fear. _His_ fear. What was he afraid of?

Jack lowered his staff.

"No," he told it gently. "If you're my fear then you won't destroy me."

"Oh?"

"I'm not afraid anymore. I'm not invisible anymore and I know who I was – I know the truth. I have people who care about me now, and I know that the people who cared back then," he cast a sad glance to the spot where the ice had cracked, "wouldn't want me to wallow in self-pity or doubts. Just as I know they would have moved on with their lives, it's time I moved on with mine. I'm not afraid anymore."

"Everyone's afraid of something," his fear snapped, sounding more desperate than angry.

"And part of life is overcoming those fears," he said.

"So you intend to leave me behind?" it questioned, a combination of betrayal and defiance.

"No, I intend to take you with me," he held out his hand much in the same manner as the other him had done before. "But I won't let you weigh me down anymore. Come on, we're _Fun_ , we don't have time to worry about every little thing when there are people – kids – out there who need us. So let's stop worrying about ifs and buts and have it."

 

* * *

 

Sandy jolted as the fear that had settled over Jack suddenly sprang upwards like some great cloud, slowly forming into the basic shape of a person. Fearling. On the bed, Jack's eyes flew open and widened as they landed on the shadowy form of the Fearling, but Sandy didn't have time to worry about that.

With renewed vigour, he wrapped the writhing, furious Fearling in dream sand and pulled it close, looking deep into the hollows it called eyes. Moonlight filtered in through the window.

_You are not real. You are not true. You are nothing._

With an overload of good dreams and pure moonlight the Fearling screamed, dissipating into nothingness.

Sandy took a moment to let it all sink in before he turned excitedly to Jack, who stared at him, clearly overwhelmed.

"Sandy," the boy breathed in relief and confusion before his gaze travelled back to where the Fearling had been. "…What did I miss? Where's Pitch?!"

Sandy laughed in his silent way, floating over to Jack and pulling him into a short embrace, conveying to him that they had Pitch securely in their custody until they could figure out what to do with him.

"I'm glad you're okay."

He did his best to let Jack know the sentiment was mutual.

"Oi, I heard screaming! What's goin' on in here?!"

Both spirits looked up as the door burst open, revealing a flustered Bunny flanked by Tooth and North. The fierce expressions on their faces vanished as they spotted Jack – awake and upright – sitting up in bed with Sandy grinning widely beside him.

"Jack!" was the only warning either of the two received before they charged over, North and Tooth pulling Jack into a bone-crushing hug.

"Uh, guys, I can't breathe," Jack managed.

"Oops, sorry," they pulled away, both smiling sheepishly.

"How ya feelin', Frostbite?" Bunny asked, crossing his arms and leaning against the bedpost.

"Tired, actually," Jack admitted, ignoring the nickname for now. He could ponder on it later. He glanced over at Sandy. "And a little out of the loop. What happened?"

"You were possessed by Fearling," North explained when Bunny looked away to glare at the ground.

"Fearling?"

"They're like an embodiment of fear," Tooth told him sadly. "A long time ago Pitch used them to corrupt and kill a lot of people. We'd thought they'd all been destroyed…"

"But apparently not," Jack finished for her. Well, that explained the weird dreams, he supposed. "And it's gone now?"

Sandy nodded, creating a live-action replay with his sand.

"Ha! I knew you were strong enough!" North beamed with pride. "You have very special centre, after all, no?"

Jack found the man's enthusiasm contagious. "I figured it out, if that's what you mean." He paused, recalling the last of the dreams. "And I came to terms with something."

"Are you ready to make it official? Being Guardian, I mean."

"And when you're feeling better we're going to make _heaps_ of happy memories so nothing like this ever happens again!" Tooth said enthusiastically. "I'm sorry we weren't there for you, Jack. But I promise we'll make it up to you. Whether you become a Guardian or not, you're one of us. Now and forever more."

"I think I'd like that," Jack smiled.

"Excellent!" North barked. "Then while you rest, we will begin preparations for big party! Come!" he ushered the others towards the door. All but Bunny followed him out.

Jack watched the Pooka for a time before the silence started getting to him. "Everything alright there, Cottontail?"

"I'm sorry."

"…What?"

"I said I'm sorry," Bunny repeated, meeting his eye. "I misjudged you. You're not as much of a brat as I'd thought, and you _do_ care about the kids. And I'm sorry for all those things I said. They weren't true. Any of 'em."

"Yeah, well, I was wrong about you, too," Jack smirked. "Don't get me wrong, you're still grumpy and annoying, but you're not half-bad, I suppose."

Bunny looked like he had more than a few things to say in retaliation but held his tongue. "I'm glad you're alright, Frostbite," he said finally, pausing only to ruffle the kid's hair as he made his way towards the door. "But don't think this means I like ya," he added hastily.

"Wouldn't dream of it."


	82. Spring Thaw

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I LIIIIIVE! My exams are officially (as of about 10am this morning) OVER! (In case you couldn't tell I am very excited at the prospect of some time off)
> 
> So, here you are my dears, a celebratory chapter, as requested by the lovely Mysteryfan17 and Fantasy Forger. I do hope you enjoy :3
> 
> Disclaimed

A remote village on a mountainside somewhere in Asia was probably the last place Jack had expected to find some of his believers, but it was certainly a nice surprise. The kids all cheered and beamed in excitement as he dropped by, and all at once his intention to spread a light dusting of snow (they were having an early spring thaw this year, or at least they would be if he didn't have a say in it) was gone in the wind that deposited him down gently before them.

The kids were grabbing at him, bouncing in excitement, and babbling all at once. Unfortunately, he had no idea what they were saying.

"Sorry, kiddos, I only speak English," he apologised. Well, fluently anyway. Like most people he knew a few bits and pieces of other languages, but not enough to hold up his end of a conversation for very long.

The kids, whether they'd understood or not, didn't seem at all bothered by the language barrier, and started making wild gestures in an attempt to get him to understand.

"You… want me to make it snow?" he guessed, forming a single snowflake in his hand for emphasis.

They nodded, one of them reaching down to a pile of dirty slush (all that remained of the snow, alas) and trying to make it into a snowball.

"Oh, I get it," he grinned. "You can't have a good snowball fight without proper snowballs, right?" It took only a wave of his staff to get the grey clouds above to start releasing the little frozen particles and barely a thought to make them settle without melting first. It would take a while if he didn't want to start up a full-blown blizzard (which he didn't) but in the meantime, making a few snowballs was definitely something he could do.

In less than ten minutes he'd renewed much of the snow around the square they were in, and already the kids were diving in, forming snowballs and pelting them at each other. Jack was quick to retaliate, his perfect aim serving him well.

Any adult who happened to glance in their direction would not be able to explain the sudden fresh snow that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, nor the way some of the snowballs had no point of origin.

As the game got more intense, the kids started slowly edging closer to the surrounding forest, using the trees for cover and stealth. Jack helpfully provided them with more ammo when their reserves started depleting, and soon enough the little village was lost by a thick surrounding of forest.

"Wait, I think we've gone too far," Jack announced, gathering the group's attention.

One of the older girls apparently understood what he was concerned about and pointed through the trees, shaking her head. Another joined her, smiling as he spoke in the same foreign language.

"Not lost?" he deduced. "Well, as long as we, and by 'we' I mean you, don't get into any trouble…"

A snowball to the back of his head knocked away any thoughts of responsibility. It would be fine. If need be, he could always fly up, spot the village, and take them back later. They would just have to be careful not to stay out so late that they lost the sunlight.

Apparently 'it would be fine' was the universal signal to let life know it was time to prove you wrong, because it was right at that moment that things suddenly became very, very not fine.

It started with the sound of a rock or a log breaking free from its position on the slope above them, and that was all the sign Jack needed to know it was time to head home.

"Okay, come on, guys," he said, making large hand movements as he tried to usher them back towards the village. He looked up the mountainside, trying to pick where the danger was coming from. "Sounds like trouble's on the way and we definitely do not want to be caught up in that."

They seemed to grasp something of the urgency in his voice and complied with only a few grumbles. The oldest child's eyes darted from face to face, and Jack recognised she was counting the group, much like he'd seen adults do in the past. Her eyes suddenly widened and shot to Jack, her body language one of fear as she desperately tried to tell him something. Whatever she had said caused a stir amongst the others and they quickly matched her expression, scanning the surrounding forest as though in search for something.

"What is it? What's– Oh no. We're missing someone, aren't we?"

One of the younger boys shouted, catching everyone's attention, and pointed frantically back the way they had come. Jack spun on his heel, following the boy's line of sight, and heaved a huge sigh of relief when he spotted their missing member – a boy around six or seven years old – hurrying towards them.

A loud crack from above made them all jump. Jack quickly located the source of the noise. Up above them on the slope was practically a wall of mud and slush, held in place only by a fallen log that was struggling to hold under the weight.

"Go! Go!" Jack cried, making shooing motions at the kids behind him. "I'll get him, you guys hurry up and go!"

The kids hesitated for only a second before doing what he'd asked and Jack let himself pull his attention away from them to focus on the straggler. A blast of wind right then would probably be a terrible idea, so instead he settled for running over, pushing his legs to move as fast as possible. The log creaked ominously.

"Come on, come here, just a little farther," he encouraged, holding out his arms for the boy with full intention to shoot upwards the second he had him.

The snapping of wood was so loud he was sure they would have heard it all the way back in the village. With its barrier gone, the mud wasted no time in plunging down the incline towards them. Jack barely spared it a glance as he pushed himself, willed himself to make it in time. Pale fingers clasped around a thin arm just as the wave struck them.

It was like being swept up in a river. If that river had been made of custard and brambles instead of water. Twigs and loose rocks scraped at any exposed skin they could find as Jack and the boy were tossed along like baggage. He'd lost his grip on his staff when the wave had struck, and instead had focussed on maintaining his grip on the boy and shielding his face from the worst of it.

When the torrent finally, _finally_ slowed and then stopped completely, neither of them moved for a good minute or two.

"Are you okay?" Jack asked quietly, opening his eyes only just enough to see the mud-caked child still held firmly in his arms. No doubt he was in no better state.

He considered it a miracle when the kid slowly tilted his head so that he could look Jack in the face and muttered something the winter spirit had no chance of understanding.

"It's okay, we're okay," he tried to reassure them both. "Now let's see where we are."

Jack shifted his shoulders, trying to dislodge them from the layer of mud that was half smothering them. The small movement destabilised the whole foundation and sent them sliding again. He quickly tucked his head in and tightened his death grip on the kid as they fell further down the slope. The boy whimpered in his arms.

"We're fine, we're fine," he said as soothingly as possible. "We just have to make sure we don't move… at all. And we should probably keep our voices low." _So, basically we're just going to sit here_ , the mutinous voice in his head provided. _For how long, exactly?_

It was a bad plan, even if he didn't want to admit it. Sure it would keep them from being buried alive, or thrown off the mountain entirely, but like the pessimistic side of him said, it wasn't going to get them out of there, and while he probably could stay there for years if he had to, the kid he was trying to protect was a different matter.

With this in mind, Jack decided to try and get a better idea of their situation. Without sending them spiralling down the hillside this time. As slowly and carefully as he could, he turned his head to the side. Some of the mud that had caked onto his hair and face slipped down his neck and he froze, but thankfully that was all. From his new position, he could see a little of their surroundings.

The mountainside stretched out before him, almost unrecognisable. The area he had been playing with the kids in not ten minutes ago was gone, completely drowned in mud and debris. They wouldn't be getting out that way unless they flew, and Jack could see no sign of his staff.

"Okay, so it doesn't look like we can go up…" _How about down?_

Again he successfully managed to turn without much more than a face-full of mud for his efforts. Flicking as much of the muck out of his eyes as he could, Jack took stock of the lower area.

"…Oh."

The lower area was exactly that. Low. As in down. As in move-a-muscle-and-you're-falling-to-your-death down. It was steep enough that he was certain not even he would be able to walk away from it. Not for a long time at least. And oh, was that his staff he spied down there caught on a tree branch? Just perfect. Simply peachy.

There had to be a way out. Maybe he could lower his body temperature to harden the mud and reduce the risk of them falling to at least one of their deaths. Except that that would mean that the kid in his arms was in for a nasty dose of frostbite.

"Okay not an option," he bit out. "You got any ideas, kid?"

As expected, the boy didn't reply.

"Why am I not surprised?"

The familiar voice was both a blessing and a curse. And also the source of a great deal of confusion.

"Ceres?"

"I see your brain is still functioning, then."

Jack resisted the urge to roll his eyes at her snark and tried to tilt his head in her direction in hopes that he could spot her. No such luck. Wherever she was it was out of his line of sight.

"Ceres, please, he's already half-buried in mud, he doesn't need you to make the situation worse."

"May?"

"Hello, Jack. Are you alright?"

"Marvellous, thank you," he replied sarcastically. "I'd been meaning to take a mud bath."

"I thought you needed help, but seeing as you're clearly enjoying yourself, perhaps we should go back to our discussion," Ceres drawled. Her comment was quickly followed by a muffled protest, leading Jack to conclude that May had hit her.

"I wouldn't be opposed to a little help," Jack replied as casually as he could muster. "Also I think my friend here would appreciate it."

"Is he alright?" May asked.

"I think so," Jack let his gaze dart down to the boy who was clutching him tightly and shaking like a leaf. It was glaringly obvious that he was oblivious to the two women's presence. "A little shaken up but nothing permanent." _At least I hope_.

"Shall we get you both out of there, then, and check?"

"And how do you propose we do that?" Ceres asked pointedly. "We take one step on that mud and we'll end up in the same position as them."

"Well maybe we could pull them out."

"If we get anywhere close our wind will start another mudslide."

"Then we need to remove the threat," May said simply.

"Any day now please," Jack interrupted.

"Sorry, Jack, you're going to have to sit tight for a little longer. I'll be right back." There was a slight warm breeze, alerting the winter spirit that his spring counterpart had departed.

Several minutes of silence passed.

"So…" Jack rolled the word.

"So?" Ceres repeated.

"You and May just happened to be in the area?"

"We were."

"Together. At the start of your seasons."

"Is that a problem?"

"No, no, I was just curious. It's not really something I would have expected… from either of you."

"What, we're not allowed to be social? We can't discuss work before the season?"

"That's not what I meant."

"Can't we leave you kids alone for five minutes?" Lleu's voice called from overhead.

"I'm older than all of you," Ceres snapped.

"Yes, we know. You act your age."

Jack stifled a laugh.

"So, Snow Cone, you look cosy," the summer seasonal smirked, landing lightly in Jack's direct line of sight. The mud instantly went hard under the exposure from his natural heat.

"Let me guess, you're about to make it cosier," Jack raised a brow.

"Well, you know me; I'm just that kind of guy." He turned to the girls. "So you just need me to set the mud, right? Then we can just smash him out?"

"Yes, that should be it," May replied from somewhere behind Jack.

"Let's get to work then."

"Did Lleu just willingly announce he's going to work?" Jack stage whispered.

"Quiet, you, or I'll leave you stuck down there."

"Rude."

With the harnessed powers of summer, Lleu made short work of the mud that had been such a threat not moments before, effectively trapping Jack and the boy, who had finally started paying attention and was looking rather confused and fearful, in a hard cocoon. May and Ceres were finally able to land safely.

"I think that's baked enough," Lleu remarked, hands on his hips as he surveyed his handy work. "You ready to cut the cake?"

"Cake?" May enquired.

"Shouldn't we ice it first?" Ceres suggested at nearly the same time.

"If I could move I would hit you," Jack grumbled. "C'mon guys, this kid's starting to panic and I'll bet his parents are worried sick."

"Here, Jack," May knelt down beside him and started prying away the solid mud, being careful not to get close enough to the boy that he could accidentally pass through her. She may not have cared much about being seen, but having someone go right through you like you were made of air was never a pleasant feeling.

Lleu promptly joined her and, after a stern look from both him and May, Ceres added her own assistance. Jack rose out of the ground like a zombie the second he was able, being sure to keep a firm grip on his charge.

"You okay, kiddo?" he asked the shaking boy.

The boy, although he didn't understand the words, grasped the sentiment and nodded, clinging tightly to the winter spirit.

"See? I told you we'd be okay," he smiled, hugging the boy to him. "Now let's get you home." He stood, "But first, if one of you would be willing to grab my staff for me…"

"Where is it?" Lleu frowned.

"Down there," he pointed down the incline to where his staff still hung, coated in mud.

"Consider it done, your chilliness," Lleu saluted, shooting over the edge.

"You need a shower," Ceres told him snidely.

"That's a shame seeing as how the water would just freeze," Jack shrugged.

"A bath, then."

"I dunno," Lleu inputted, bonking Jack on the head with the staff. "It's kind of a good look for you."

"Gee thanks," Jack snatched back his staff, relishing in the feeling of security it gave him. The wind happily lifted him into the air as soon as hand and wood made contact.

"Jack," May regained his attention. "The boy?"

"Ah, right. I'd better get him home. Thanks for the save, you guys."

"You're welcome," May and Lleu smiled, both ignoring Ceres' "You'd better be."

"You can pay us back, of course," Lleu smirked. "I have a nice long list of options if you're interested."

"Why does that sound unnecessarily sinister?"


	83. Spring Thaw Part II (Aftermath)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At the request of A fan, here is a sort of 'aftermath' to the previous chapter (and omg thank you for giving me the opportunity to use one of the ideas on my non-request list!)
> 
> Disclaimed.

"Hey," Jack greeted the washroom yetis. He was about to ask if they'd be willing to add his hoodie to the pile of washing but their collective gasp of horror as they caught sight of him gave him pause. They looked like he'd just insulted their entire existence.

One of them broke away from its place by a large basin, stalked towards him, and ignoring Jack's protests, practically tore his mud-coated hoodie right off his body. The way it was carrying on anyone would think Jack had personally offended it. He relented to tolerating the manhandling considering getting his clothes washed had been his original intention, but when the yeti made a grab for him again – no doubt for his equally grubby pants – he had to draw the line.

"Uh-uh, no way," he cried, flying up out of the yeti's reach. "The pants are staying on."

The yeti grumbled something that went over Jack's head.

"You _do_ know I don't speak yetish right?"

The yeti rolled its eyes, stalking over to a cupboard in the corner and grabbing out a brush that looked suspiciously like it was intended for scrubbing floors. It made a few stroking motions to get its point across before placing the brush in Jack's free hand when the boy in question descended back to the ground.

Jack heaved a sigh as he sat down against the wall. Placing the oilskin bag he'd been carrying down in front of him, he pulled out his old clothes (which had survived their cold-storage rather well) and slipped them on in place of his hoodie before setting to work on brushing the dried mud off his pants. The yeti, apparently satisfied, took the hoodie back over to the washtub and returned to work.

 

* * *

 

"Ah, welcome Sandy," North beamed at his old friend as he walked into the Globe Room. He'd invited the other Guardians over for an informal get-together – strictly no work talk – and the Sandman had been the first to arrive. He was proven right in his prediction of the order of the others when Bunny showed up next, and Tooth not long after, a small swarm of fairies in tow. Jack would be last, and late, but this was nothing unusual. The boy's lifestyle was as unpredictable as he was.

"Let me guess," Bunny grouched, glancing around the room. "Frostbite's not here yet."

Unfortunately not everybody (*cough*Bunnymund*cough*) was as understanding of this.

"Oh relax, Bunny, he'll be here soon," Tooth chided.

"You'd think one of these days he'd be on time."

 _And one of these days you won't complain about it_ , North thought to himself in amusement.

A yeti that had been passing by paused when it heard the topic of their conversation.

"What?" North raised a brow as he listened to its input. "Jack is already here?"

The yeti replied in the affirmative.

"Where is he, then?" Bunny asked.

"In washroom," North repeated the yeti's reply flatly, scarcely able to believe it.

Sandy expressed their collective confusion with a question mark. _Why?_

North shrugged. "Is only one way to find out. Come, we go see for ourselves."

Jack was, indeed, in the washroom. And if that hadn't been weird enough, he was not wearing his trademark hoodie and was scrubbing at his hair as he stuck the top half of his head into a large bucket of water.

"Oh, hey guys," he smiled, catching sight of them. He pulled his head up and shook out all the excess water that had already frozen into little beads of ice. "Did I get it all?" he asked one of the yetis. The yeti nodded proudly. "Good."

Jack stood up, allowing them to get a good look at what he was wearing.

The pants were still the same (and was it just North or did they look cleaner than normal?), and he was still barefoot, but in place of his usual blue hoodie was a white long-sleeved tunic, a vest, and a dark brown cloak. All of it looked hand-sewn.

Several of Tooth's fairies swooned. Baby Tooth (one of the few who hadn't) fluttered over to him.

"Haven't seen that get-up in a while," Bunny commented.

Sandy tilted his head, a sand hoodie and a question mark appearing above him.

"It's getting washed," Jack pointed to where a yeti had hung it up to dry with a bunch of other clothes. It was probably due for a good clean anyway, but North had the feeling there was a little more to it than that; an opinion he gave voice to.

"I got caught up in a mudslide," Jack shrugged like it was no big deal or was something that occurred regularly. "It was going to take more than a little ice to get all the mud off."

"Are you okay?" Tooth asked worriedly, flying over to him.

"I'm fine, Tooth," Jack grinned. "The other seasonals helped me out."

She only looked half-convinced before she distracted herself by examining his new (or, rather, old) attire. "It looks good on you."

"Don't get used to it; as soon as my hoodie's dry I'm getting changed again." Tooth made to ask something further but he pre-empted the question and elaborated, "It's a little old fashioned for the twenty-first century, don't you think?"

"To be honest I'm surprised ya even still have 'em," Bunny said.

"If I didn't I wouldn't have anything to wear in situations like this."

North silently added 'put clothes in Jack's wardrobe' to his mental to-do list. Although _technically_ , Jack didn't have his own room per se (or that's just what North let the boy believe – and if Jack noticed that the 'guest room' he used whenever he stayed was always the same one he didn't say anything about it).

"Oh hey we had a thing today didn't we?" Jack realised.

"Yes," North confirmed. "We must decide what we want to do!"


	84. Kindred Spirits

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry this was so long in the making. It's actually not the request it was supposed to be, but the one at the top of my list I just physically couldn't write without help. I sent a message to the requestee a while back, which I presume you haven't received, but if you do find it and get back to me, I'll definitely be willing to have another go.
> 
> So this is a combined request from Shinku and SonYukiGoku'sSister. I hope you enjoy it ^w^ (I feel like Pitch is a bit OOC in this but I give up)
> 
> IMPORTANT: Just a reminder that requests are still closed. I will let you know when the list (which found itself growing these past holidays (with fantastic ideas, no less)) dwindles enough that you will no longer have to wait a million years for your request to be written ^^;
> 
> Disclaimed.

Jack stared at the tin of cream-coloured goop on the counter before him. If asked right at that moment, he could confidently say that he had not thought this through. But he couldn't quit now, not when it had taken _so very, very long_ to get this far. And at quite a cost, he realised, glancing around the kitchen. There was more cake batter on the walls and floor than there was in the bowl. And don't even get him started on the elves he'd recruited to help him (a poor decision if ever there was one. At least they'd managed to keep the yetis away).

But now it all came down to one crucial moment – the last instruction in the recipe book – and he couldn't do it. Nor would he trust his 'helpers' to do the deed, either.

Jack's shoulders sagged as he let out a groan of frustration. Of all things, he was going to be defeated by an _oven_. He needed help.

"Hey," he called out to the elves, who instantly stood to eager attention. "I need one of you to go find a yeti."

From the looks on their faces, he couldn't say with certainty if they'd understood his directions (having told them earlier to keep them away certainly wouldn't have helped matters), but several of them hurried off with an air of great importance and dedication nonetheless. He could have gone himself, but he didn't trust the elves enough to leave them alone with the batter.

One might take a moment to wonder why on Earth a winter spirit was trying to bake a cake, and the answer to that would be a bad pun. It was a half-baked attempt to butter up Pitch so he wouldn't try to kill him when he went and invited himself over later.

Hey, it had worked last time… kinda.

This, of course, might lead one to further questions which will temporarily be ignored.

Jack was mildly surprised when a yeti meandered in a few minutes later; he hadn't truly expected much in the way of results. The yeti seemed confused, eyes roaming from the 'decorated' kitchen to Jack and his tin of batter.

"I, um, was wondering if you could put this in the oven for me," Jack said awkwardly, holding out the tin as he gestured to the large oven at the back of the room. "It's too hot for me to get close."

The yeti acquiesced, taking the tin over to the oven, saying something with a lilt to its voice as it went. Jack, who was picking up some of the language, knew immediately what it was asking (not that it was difficult to figure out, given the circumstances).

"I know I could have just used a Christmas cake," he agreed, "but I don't think it would have gone over very well with the recipient."

The yeti paused, turning to face him questioningly.

"Let's just say the person I'm making this for doesn't really like Christmas."

The yeti crossed its arms and gave him the _look_. Jack was momentarily flabbergasted. He'd thought only moms and Jamie were capable of that look.

"…I don't want to say," he mumbled at length. Because really, telling one of Santa's helpers that he was baking a cake for the Boogieman wouldn't have gone down well. If it was believed at all. It did sound pretty absurd when he thought about it like that.

The look intensified. Jack cringed.

"Alright, alright!" he caved. "It's for Pitch."

 

* * *

 

"Gah! Hey! Let me go!" Jack cried as he was bodily hauled down hallway after hallway by a yeti gripping his hoodie.

The yeti didn't release him, not that he'd expected it to, really.

"Come on! I can explain!"

"Explain what?"

Cold dread seized him (pun not intended) at the familiar voice. _Crap_ , he mentally cursed. "Uh, hey, North," he said aloud as he was unceremoniously dumped in front of the large holiday icon.

The yeti started rambling and gesturing wildly. Jack couldn't understand the words but he had a fairly good idea of what it was saying. He hunched his shoulders in preparation for what was to come.

"What do you mean he was baking cake for Pitch?" North asked, sounding like he didn't believe a word he was saying.

The yeti said something else and North's heavy gaze fell on the winter spirit who suddenly felt very exposed.

"Why were you baking cake for Pitch?" he sounded more confused and concerned than anything.

"Um…" Jack didn't know what to say. He really wasn't sure how the others would react if he told them what he'd been attempting to do. Would North forbid him from going? It wouldn't stop him, but it would make him feel bad about it – he didn't want to risk breaking the trust of these people that had been so hard-earned. Especially on something they all felt so strongly about.

North waited patiently, contradicting the deep frown furrowing his brow.

"Well…" Jack bit his lip. Better just spit it out and get it over with. "A while ago I went to Pitch to talk to him about some stuff and for a while there I thought I was getting through to him. Then another time I brought him some cake from Mom and I mean, yeah he kicked me out, but he did take the cake. I guess I was just sorta hoping if I brought a whole cake this time he'd be more willing to talk, you know?"

"You went to talk to Pitch?" it didn't really sound like a question.

"Yes."

"Why?"

Jack raised his eyes to look North in the eye. "Because he's like me."

North's expression slackened. "Jack, you are not–"

"And because he has a Globe of Belief," Jack continued, cutting the older man off. He pulled his own Globe out from under his hoodie. "You told me all Guardians have a Globe of Belief. But Pitch has one, too."

North stared silently, focus darting from the small ice Globe to Jack's face.

"And he _is_ like me. Or at least I used to be like him. We both know what it's like to be alone and unbelieved in. He just suffered longer than I did. I mean, that could have been me!" Jack cried, starting to pace back and forth between the yeti and North. "If it hadn't been for him, who's to say I wouldn't still be alone, or that I wouldn't turn out like him eventually? I guess I just feel like I owe him or something."

"Jack…"

"I _know_ he can change," Jack rounded on North. "Or at least be less… evil. Fear is important, especially for kids. He just takes it too far. We can help him. _I_ can help him. You can tell me not to go if you want but I'm going to go anyway." He could always just go ask Jamie's help to make a cake, he supposed. But he had a feeling the kid would be similarly appalled at his decision.

"Jack, do you know the story of how Pitch became the way he is now?" North's question, which was definitely not a reprimand, caught Jack off-guard.

"Kozmotis Pitchiner," Jack whispered. He was Mother Nature's father and, by extension, Jack's grandfather. Kind of.

"That's right," North nodded, oblivious to Jack's mental commentary. "Do you know what happened to him?"

"No," Jack replied. Mother had mentioned very little on the topic and the nature of his 'turning' wasn't one of them.

"Kozmotis was a great general of the Golden Age," North explained. "And as part of his duty he volunteered to guard the Fearlings on the planet they'd been imprisoned on."

"Fearlings?"

North looked momentarily surprised. "They were before your time," he said at length. "Creatures of darkness, they were, and they could possess a person, turning them into shadowy things like themselves. There is no known way to revert process."

"And they possessed Kozmotis," Jack concluded.

"They did," North nodded solemnly. "They tricked him into thinking they had captured his daughter and he opened the door to save her. He could not fight them all."

"Why are you telling me this?" Jack asked after a beat of silence.

"Kozmotis was a hero, and a good man who only wished to protect," North told him. "He is not like the others who have been possessed by the Fearlings that I have seen – he has more control, more sentience of his own.

"Jack, if you think you can help him, then I trust you."

Jack blinked, processing the words he couldn't help but think he'd imagined. "Really?"

"Really."

Jack smiled lightly, warmed by North's faith in him.

"But be careful, Jack. You are more valuable to me than any possibility of regaining Kozmotis."

"Thanks, North. I will."

 

* * *

 

Pitch had moved the entrance to his lair again. And really, Jack probably should have seen it coming.

"Well this is inconvenient," he said to no one, staff in one hand and a cake container in the other. How was he supposed to invite himself over to Pitch's place if he didn't know where the front door was? That was just like Pitch. So inconsiderate.

He supposed he could wait until nightfall, find a Nightmare and follow it back, but that would require a lot of patience; something Jack was not known for.

"Looks like we'll just have to search for it," he said to the wind, calling for it to pick him up. "The lair should still be in the same place, right? So the tunnel has to be around here somewhere."

The tunnel, it turned out, was not around there somewhere. Or, if it was, Pitch had hidden it really well. Jack touched down at his lake with a weary, frustrated sigh, leaning his back against one of the trees.

It was spring in Burgess, but it wasn't hot enough yet that Jack would have to stay away. The lake had thawed, though, and the breeze's gentle caress sent small ripples across the surface.

…Except there was no breeze.

Jack stood up straight, staring at the ripples. He sincerely hoped this wasn't going to be anything like what had happened last time there were suspicious ripples in the pond. He didn't really feel like being eaten. Not to mention the cake he'd slaved over would be ruined.

But instead of a giant lake monster, the head that poked out was much smaller, green and turtle-like, with a mop of dark hair.

"You should be careful, child, lest you fall in and drown yourself," it said in a deep, but not unfriendly, accented voice.

 _A bit late for that_ , Jack thought with a grimace. "I'm not a child," he said instead. "I'm over three hundred years old."

"You are still a child," the thing returned, amused.

Jack frowned. "Who are you?" he asked, almost accusingly.

"I am a Kappa," the thing replied.

"Okay and what are you doing in the pond?"

"It is my job," Kappa replied as if it were obvious.

"Your job?"

"Yes, I warn children of the dangers beneath the surface of rivers and lakes."

"Oh."

"What have you got there, young one?" Kappa's gaze drifted to the cake container.

"Oh, it was for a… uh, it was for Pitch Black. But he's hidden the entrance to his lair and I can't find it."

"You know Pitch Black?" Kappa asked, suddenly listening intently.

"Yes? Don't you?"

"I know of him, yes, but have never had the pleasure of meeting him in person."

"Pleasure?" Jack mimicked. "Boy do I have news for you…"

Kappa cocked his head to the side. "I do not understand. Pitch's use of fear to teach children is something to be respected, is it not?"

Jack just stared. Had this guy been living under a rock or something? Sure what he was talking about was something Jack had been trying to make Pitch realise, but he hadn't gotten that far yet. Pitch wasn't exactly someone 'respectable' at the moment, nor did he use fear for its proper purpose.

"You know, I think I should introduce you two," Jack decided. If anything, Kappa's admiration might be a helpful boost…

Kappa's eyes lit up at the opportunity.

"Of course, we'd have to find him, first."

"What do we need to look for?" Kappa asked eagerly, swimming closer to the bank.

"A hole in the ground. There might be an old bed frame over it, maybe not."

"Ah, I saw one such thing on my way to this pond!" Kappa exclaimed. Upon reaching the shore, he hauled himself out, revealing his body; turtle-like to match the rest of him.

Jack blinked. That was convenient. "Lead the way, then!" he grinned.

 

* * *

 

There was really no reason he shouldn't have been able to spot the hole, Jack realised as he stared down into the gloomy depths, Kappa beside him. The entrance to Pitch's lair had been in a denser part of the forest, but was by no means invisible; just well hidden. He was honestly surprised the water-dweller had managed to spot it at all, let alone remember where it was.

"How does one knock at this entrance?" Kappa asked, staring down at the hole partially concealed by a shrub.

"I usually just let myself in," Jack shrugged. "Not like he even has a door." And without further ado, he stepped into empty space and let himself free-fall until the wind caught him and deposited him gently on the stone floor of Pitch's lair. He quickly stepped forward when he heard Kappa following him.

Last time he'd had to call Pitch out, so he was by no means prepared for the blade that suddenly appeared at his neck. Jack smothered a gasp.

"Hey, gramps," he said as casually as he could. "How's it going?"

"Do not call me that," Pitch seethed. "What are you doing here? And who is this?" he directed the last part to Kappa, who was picking himself up off the ground where he'd fallen.

"I felt like visiting," Jack said, as if that excused coming in unannounced. "I brought you more cake," he held the container out like a peace offering. Pitch spared it only a second's glance.

"You are Pitch Black," Kappa said with reverence. "It is an honour to meet you."

Pitch clearly had not been expecting this, if his slack expression was anything to go by. Nevertheless, his scythe remained in place, ready to lop off Jack's head at any moment. Jack tried not to think about that.

"I am Kappa," Kappa bowed. "Your use of fear to protect children is an inspiration to me and my kind."

Pitch raised a brow.

"Yeah, I don't think he got the memo," Jack smirked. "But I figured you wouldn't mind meeting a fan."

Pitch glared at him. "If that is all you wanted then I would appreciate it if you left immediately. I do not have the time or patience to deal with you."

"You say that every time I come here. And yet what could you possibly have to do?"

"You'd think you'd learn to take a hint."

"You obviously don't know me very well."

"A blade to your neck not convincing enough?"

"It would be if you actually used it."

"Obviously you have no sense of self-preservation. What if I did use it? I'm sorely tempted to."

"I'd freeze you solid. You're not strong enough to fight me and you know it. Also if Mom found out she'd probably level a mountain."

Pitch growled through his teeth. He was clearly aware of his own weakness. And the very real threat of his daughter.

The Kappa, who had been watching the exchange in confused interest, spoke, "You are weak, Pitch Black?"

"Yup, we kicked his butt when he stepped out of line on Easter a little while ago," Jack replied, ducking beneath the scythe so he was no longer at risk of losing his head. Pitch was too weak to beat him in a fair fight, true, but he rarely played fair. "I'm trying to show him how he can still produce fear without being a jerk about it."

"I see. Yes, this is a good thing to understand. I could show you, if you like."

"That will not be necessary," Pitch said, furious gaze never once leaving Jack's face.

Jack meandered his way deeper into the lair, picked a nice spot on the ground and sat down, placing the cake before him. "Want some cake, Kappa?"

"I do not believe I've tried this 'cake' before," Kappa replied, moving over to join him.

"It's probably not the best one for your first try then," Jack admitted sheepishly. "I made it myself. But I had help with the oven. Winter spirits and heat don't go together very well." As he spoke, he formed a knife out of ice and cut a slice for both himself and the water spirit. "You gonna join us, Pitch?"

The Boogieman hadn't moved from where he'd been standing, still silently seething. Jack was beginning to wonder why he hadn't just called the Nightmares to drag them off. Maybe it was the cake. He hoped it was the cake. Bribery might actually work.

Or maybe it had something to with the way Kappa kept looking at him like he was a celebrity. Everybody likes flattery, after all.

When Pitch didn't move, Jack shrugged and took a bite of his slice. It wasn't too bad; not great, though, which was probably a given since it was the first time he'd cooked something like this. Long ago when he'd been human he'd sometimes helped his father skin whatever they caught, but that was a distant memory. And baking a cake didn't require that sort of skill.

After a little while, Pitch slinked back into the shadows and stayed there, neither Jack nor Kappa seeing or hearing him for the duration of their visit. Jack eventually got bored and Kappa felt like he'd overstepped his boundaries so they'd left, Kappa intending to tell some friends of his that also held Pitch in reverence. Jack figured he should be absent for those visits – maybe it would keep him just that little bit north of the shadow man's bad side. And by 'bad side' he meant 'I will chop you into little pieces' side.

 

* * *

 

When Jack returned to Pitch's lair some few weeks later, he was pleasantly surprised to find the entrance was exactly where it had been the last time he'd been there. He wasn't sure what it meant, exactly, but he figured it was a good thing.

This time there was no scythe to the neck waiting for him at the bottom, only an empty silence. Jack figured it was unlikely Pitch had stepped out, given it was the middle of the day (too hot for Jack's liking), so he decided to just go look for him.

After half an hour of fruitless searching, and not seeing even a single Nightmare, Jack was starting to get suspicious. How many rooms did this place have? And why didn't Pitch come and confront him already? It wasn't like he didn't know he was there, after all.

Another ten minutes had him standing before a large set of stone doors, partially open to reveal the interior. Jack cautiously stuck his head in through the gap and looked around.

Of all things to find in Pitch's lair, a library hadn't even made it onto the list. It was just as drab and creepy as the rest of the place and not as big as North's, but it was definitely a library. And there, seated comfortably in a black armchair was Pitch, calmly reading. It was… a strange image. Definitely not what Jack had expected.

"Are we really going to go through this again?" Pitch suddenly asked, not looking away from the page.

As he spoke, Jack felt hot breath on the back of his neck. He spun around to find a Nightmare looming over him, golden eyes filled with hatred.

"I'm not feeling as patient as I was the last time," he continued, finally looking up at the intruder, nothing warm or welcoming in his gaze.

"I didn't pick you for a reader," Jack said, swallowing down his sudden uneasiness.

"Perhaps you do not know me as well as you think. Now I will give you five seconds to escort yourself out or I will have you forcibly removed."

Jack held up his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay, I'll go. But first tell me if you've thought on what we talked about… however long ago it was now."

Pitch said nothing, but something silent must have been conveyed between him and the Nightmare because Jack suddenly found himself hoisted into the air and unceremoniously dragged topside.

"Wow. Rude," Jack brushed himself off. "But if the yetis couldn't keep me away, a few sand horses aren't going to stop me." A smirk crept its way onto his face. "I wonder how long you'll hold out before you give up!" he called down the hole. Stubbornness was something Jack was _very_ good at.

 

* * *

 

Jack had been thrown out of Pitch's lair no less than 53 times by the end of the week. The Boogieman had ambushed him at the bottom of the hole, hidden the hole, tumbled him through endless corridors of darkness, given him nightmares, and even used his shadows to send him to one of the hotter regions of the country. But Jack kept coming back for more. He was either extremely foolish or incredibly smart.

He'd never admit it, but the attempts were starting to wear the older spirit down. There was only so much antagonising one person could take, after all, even if they were the designated 'antagonist'. So when he sensed Jack slip down the hole for the 54th time, he was at his wit's end.

"What will it take for you to just leave me alone?!" he raged, appearing out of the shadows before the infuriating boy.

Jack took a small step backwards at his sudden entrance, but for the most part appeared unfazed. "You know what," he replied, smiling. Pitch would have loved nothing more than to wipe that smile right of his stupid face. Preferably with a bludgeon.

"Get. Out."

At his urging, a wave of sand struck the boy, sending him back up the tunnel to the surface with a startled and somewhat pained yelp. When he was clear, Pitch sealed the entrance over with a thick layer of Nightmare sand. Sure Jack could probably just freeze and break it, but with the spring heat outside he would find it very difficult and it would at least keep him busy for a little while.

Satisfied that he'd be left in peace for at least half an hour, Pitch retreated back to his library.

An hour went by before he started growing suspicious. Jack had rarely waited that long between his infiltrations the entire time he'd been pestering him. What was the boy planning now?

Stretching his senses, Pitch quickly located the winter spirit. He was still near the now-blocked entrance of the lair, in the throes of a nightmare if he wasn't mistaken. That hadn't been his intention when he'd smothered the boy with sand, but he wasn't complaining.

Unperturbed, he left the boy to his fears and returned to his book.

It was no less than fifteen minutes later that Pitch felt the nightmare die away, but from what he could tell, Jack was still unmoving. Surely he should have at least awoken by now, possibly snuck back in to test Pitch's now non-existent patience.

With a sigh of frustration, Pitch let the shadows consume him and deposit him in the shade of the trees near where he had located Jack to be.

The mid-spring sun shone down over the area like a great spotlight, producing enough heat to rival summer. If Pitch found it hot, then it must have been sweltering to a winter spirit. And he was looking at one now, sprawled in the open without so much as a branch to protect him from the blistering sun.

Well, that explained a few things.

The boy was clearly suffering. He was covered in sweat and his skin was flushed a bright red (some of it was probably sunburn). Pitch supposed he was partly responsible, what with the nightmare he'd given Jack having prevented him from getting somewhere cooler and all. But he really didn't care.

Or at least he didn't want to care. But there was a small, almost nonexistent niggling in the back of his mind that he should do something. Something other than just leave the retched boy there to melt into a puddle and feed the grass.

"You are insufferable," he said to Jack's unconscious body, wrapping them both in shadows and retreating back into the cold darkness of his lair.

 

* * *

 

Jack awoke to darkness. His whole body was tired and sluggish and he felt like someone had stuffed him in the oven he'd avoided when he'd baked that cake weeks ago.

Looking around the gloom, his exhausted and aching mind slowly realised he was somewhere within the caverns and endless hallways of Pitch's haunt, but the man himself was nowhere in sight. But he didn't remember coming back in after Pitch had literally waved him out. In fact, he didn't remember _anything_ after that. There had been a dream though, if he recalled correctly. A bad one.

It took a little while for the dizziness to subside enough that he would chance trying to sit up, but the cold of the stone around him was doing wonders to cool him down. It wasn't as good as snow, of course, but it was definitely helping.

When he was finally upright, he checked himself over, noting the many half-healed burns across his skin. _Must've been in the sun too long_ , he mused. It was the middle of spring, after all. May would kill him if she found out. (Which defeated the purpose of it all but oh well).

Eventually he found the strength to get to his feet, deciding he'd been left alone long enough to warrant suspicion. Finding Pitch wormed its way to the top of his agenda, if for no other reason than to find out why he'd been brought back inside (because really there was no other explanation).

It came as no real surprise that he found him in the library. From the looks of things he spent a great deal of time there (what else was there to do in this place?).

"I see you're awake," Pitch said monotonously as Jack slipped inside. His expression remained carefully blank as he watched him.

"Yeah," Jack replied tiredly. "Did you–"

"If you are capable of moving around then you are capable of leaving."

After a moment of still silence, Jack slowly hobbled his way across the room to the armchair where Pitch sat, gently lowering himself down to the ground and leaning against its side, too tired and sore to care that he was now an easy target. "What are you reading?"

Pitch didn't reply.

Jack bit back a sigh. He was so tired. With a yawn he let his eyes slide shut; he'd just rest them for a moment, gather a little energy so he could go somewhere snowy.

As the edges between dream and reality started to blur together, he could have sworn he heard a smooth voice quietly say, "The Shining."


	85. Plot Hole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter of sadism brought to you by the request of Sam (ft. elements from 13BlueBananas & Random Reader)
> 
> It's... a little similar to one of the other chapters, but ghreaweruied *incoherent noises*
> 
> Disclaimed.

It was a perfectly lovely day.

That should have been the first clue that something was about to go horribly wrong. As someone wise once said, 'if it seems perfect, it probably sucks'. Something that Jack quickly learned the moment he touched down in the clearing before Mother Nature's castle and was swallowed up by the ground as it rumbled and cracked beneath him.

"Ow," he groaned, rubbing the spot on the back of his head that'd struck against something uncomfortably like stone. Whatever it was, it was on top of him.

"We have got to stop meeting like this," a familiar voice said, clearly highly amused.

"Lleu?" Jack guessed. Well, that explained what he'd hit… or, rather, what had hit him. It also explained why he was suddenly uncomfortably hot. Sighing, he asked, "What happened this time?"

"I believe we've fallen into a plot hole," Lleu said knowledgably, pushing himself off Jack before he could burn him any further.

"A… a what?"

"Yep, this definitely looks like a plot hole."

"A plot hole," Jack repeated.

"Well, a plot cavern, maybe. But it's obviously some kind of hole and I can't think of any other reason why we're here so… plot hole."

Silence.

"Do you have a better idea?" Lleu asked, sounding like he highly doubted it.

"It felt kind of like an earthquake or something. Maybe the ground was just unstable."

"An earthquake sent by the author."

"Do you even listen to yourself when you speak?"

"No, seriously, think about it!" Lleu chirped excitedly. Judging from the wave of hot air sent Jack's way the summer spirit had gestured widely. "All of this – our whole lives – are just part of a story and everything is dictated by the author! Obviously the author is some kind of sadist, too, if you consider everything that's happened over the years. And is currently happening right now."

"That is probably one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. And I hang around Bunny."

"Yeah, well, you can't prove I'm wrong," Lleu said petulantly.

"And you can't prove you're right, either," Jack rebuked, wiping a thin layer of sweat from where it had accumulated on his brow.

"It's too hot in here," Lleu said, apparently having sensed the movement.

"I'm fine," Jack replied automatically. He was, for now anyway. But if he had to stay in there for too much longer he wouldn't be.

"It's going to turn into an oven in here. And I don't particularly fancy roast Jack for lunch."

Jack didn't have the heart to tell him it would probably be more like 'puddle Jack' than a roast. "We should focus on trying to find a way out of here," he said instead. "Wherever we are."

"Plot hole."

Jack ignored him.

"At least it's our off season," he felt Lleu shrug.

"Great, so the only people who'll notice we're gone are Mom and the others when we don't turn up for lunch."

"Works out pretty conveniently for a sadistic auth–"

"Will you please stop with the conspiracy theories?"

Lleu held his hands up in surrender.

Jack tried to ignore the way it was getting harder and harder to breathe as the space heated up, holding his arms out in search of an exit. He'd barely extended at all before his hand came into contact with rock and dirt. When he tried again, this time in a different direction, he quickly learned, to his horror, that they were completely surrounded by earth on all sides, leaving them with a space barely big enough for the two of them.

Suddenly feeling very claustrophobic, Jack pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his head on them.

A loud bump, dirt tumbling from the ceiling, and a muffled curse made him jump.

"Pretty cramped in here, huh?" Lleu chuckled, but it sounded forced. "Not much room to move."

"Yeah," Jack murmured.

"Are you okay?"

"Fine."

"No you're not."

"Then why did you ask?"

"Sorry, standard question. Maybe we can dig ourselves out," he suggested, using his hands to scrape away some of the dirt above him. Jack shuffled backwards to avoid having dirt fall on him. The last thing he needed was to add to the feeling of being buried alive. At least he still had his staff.

More and more dirt tumbled over the two of them, starting to fill up the space. When Jack found his feet partially buried in it he cried, "Stop! Stop!"

"What? What's wrong?" Lleu replied in alarm.

"I… um… it's… it's really cramped in here and…" Jack took a steadying breath. "I just don't like being stuck in small spaces." _Especially underground like this_. There were too many parallels with burying the dead for him to be any kind of comfortable.

"That's why I'm trying to dig us out," Lleu said slowly.

"I-I know, but with all the dirt and… it just feels like…"

"Oh. _Ooooh_ ," Lleu quickly gave up his digging and sat back down. "Sorry."

"It's fine."

"You know this means we're relying on the others to get us out then, right?"

"How long could it take?" Jack shrugged, trying to be optimistic.

"We're the two who are normally late," Lleu deadpanned.

"Oh. So a while, then."

"But I don't think we have that long," Lleu said, uncharacteristically serious. "Well, I probably do…"

He didn't need to finish the sentence for Jack to know what he meant. Already he was suffering from the prolonged contact with heat. And judging by the way his cheek stung, he was starting to get a burn there. Why did these things always happen to him?

Jack leaned his head back against the dirt wall and shut his eyes. It was really getting hard to breathe and he was starting to feel tired. His stomach was protesting, too. Was this what a sauna felt like?

"Man, where is that heat-proof suit when you need it?" he heard Lleu mutter beside him.

"With the way you carried on about it I was sure you would wear it all the time," Jack chuckled quietly.

"Not much point if you're not there," Lleu replied. "Besides, it would hinder my work if I wore it all the time."

"True."

They lapsed into silence.

"Snow Cone?" Lleu called after a few minutes.

"Hmm?"

"Don't fall asleep."

"Tired."

"I know but you can't fall asleep."

Jack didn't reply.

Lleu bit his lip and felt around the darkness for Jack's staff to prod him with. When Jack merely grunted – not even a single complaint that he had snatched his staff – Lleu resumed trying to find an exit. But digging looked like the only option. He would just have to be careful to catch all the dirt and put it in a pile away from Jack. The kid would just have to put up with a few little bits here and there; it was worth it if he didn't melt before they got out of there.

He'd been at it for what felt like hours (but in reality may have only been a few minutes) before his hand struck something hard and he cursed.

Rocks.

That was probably why the cavern hadn't collapsed on them when they'd fallen in. But as it was, he wouldn't be able to move them alone, especially with however much dirt was sitting on top of them. If he tried, there was a huge chance they'd fall and the two of them would be crushed.

They were stuck.

"If there really is an author who controls everything, I could really use your help right about now," he muttered.

Lleu sat back down with a huff. "Sorry, Jack," he whispered. "I tried."

 

* * *

 

Dirt trickling down into Lleu's face had him springing up, only for the slight increase in height to make him hit his head on the ceiling. Staring upwards he could see nothing through the all-consuming darkness, but there was definitely dirt falling.

"Snow Cone?" he called, part of him hoping it was Jack's doing. There was no answer, though, and a quick feel around confirmed the boy was still exactly where he had been however long ago. Unconscious and unmoving.

But dirt was still tumbling, so something had to be unsettling it. Lleu really hoped it wasn't just the rocks shifting under the weight of so much earth.

"Hello?!" he called. "Is someone there?!"

The dirt started falling at a faster pace. Lleu moved so he was protecting Jack from the majority of it. Even if he was unconscious, he didn't want the kid to feel like he was being buried alive.

The sound of rocks scraping sent a surge of hope through the summer spirit so strong Bunnymund could probably feel it all the way in Australia. (If that got his attention, Lleu probably should have exploited it ages ago and had the rabbit dig them out.)

After what felt like a century of waiting, one of the big rocks directly above them was nudged and moved upwards. A torrent of dirt, loosened by the removal, rained down over them as blinding light poured in.

"Lleu?!" a beautifully familiar voice shouted in concern.

"Yeah, I'm here," he coughed, shaking the soil from his clothes. "Jack's here, too. I can fly up but he's out… hot, I suppose."

The air that swelled in from the surface made him shiver after so long in the heat, but it was probably the most soothing thing Jack had felt all day.

"You come on up, then, and I'll grab him," Mother Nature replied.

Lleu nodded, not that she'd see it, and let his long-time friend swoop him up out of the ground. His feet had barely touched grass before he was swept into a deep embrace.

"Are you alright?" Mother Nature asked, tightening her grip.

"Fine," Lleu replied, smiling at a concerned May and a blank-faced Ceres behind her. "Jack's not, though."

"Right, yes," Mother said hastily, releasing him. She made no further comment as she jumped down into the hole.

"How long did it take you guys to notice?" he asked the girls.

"We thought you were just running late at first, until we realised it was both of you," May said apologetically.

"Which was…?"

"About an hour."

"Nice."

"Well if you were on time more often we wouldn't have taken so long," Ceres huffed.

"It's nice to see you too."

"How is he?" May asked, drawing their attention to Mother, who had Jack cradled to her chest as she emerged from the gaping hole in the ground.

"Severely overheated," she replied. "But he should be fine as soon as we cool him off and get some water into him." She started walking back towards the castle, not sparing the destruction of her lawn a second glance. The others fell into step behind her.

"I'm still confused about why your lawn tried to eat us," Lleu remarked. His eyes fell on their destination. "Oh."

 

* * *

 

"So it turns out you were right all along, Snow Cone," Lleu admitted as he finished his tale, reclining back in his chair across the room. "It _was_ an earthquake and the ground _was_ unstable."

"I told you your conspiracy theory was ridiculous," Jack smirked around the rim of a glass of water. He'd woken up a little while ago and, after being squeezed within an inch of his life by Mom, was now seated up in bed, the room covered in ice courtesy of said Mom.

"Still kind of suspicious that there was an earthquake right when we landed, though."

"You just told me it was Mom reacting badly to finding out the sprites had completely destroyed all the lunch preparations ten minutes before we were supposed to arrive. The front of the castle is destroyed. What further proof do you need?"

"Still suspicious."

Jack shook his head in fond exasperation. "We're not stuck in a story, Lleu."

"What if that's just what the author wants you to believe?"

"I give up. Believe what you want."

"I will."


	86. Recruitment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUYS. GUYS. GUYS LOOK! TugLover98 drew some fanart! Check out how amazing it is! :D riding-the-wind.tumblr.com/post/125310786094/i-drew-this-one-a-few-seconds-ago-and-its-the-one & riding-the-wind.tumblr.com/post/125307990654/theres-lleusorta-he-looks-like-an-elf-in-th
> 
> Okay, this one is at the request of Guest (no idea which one but oh well). There's not much of plot though. Sorry ^^;
> 
> Disclaimed.

Jack subtly surveyed the area as he landed before the small cottage and made his way towards the door. So far so good; he couldn't see anyone who might be staking-out the area. Nevertheless, he remained on guard as he knocked in the rhythmic pattern he'd memorised upon the aged wood.

"What's the password?" a voice asked from inside.

Jack blinked, not prepared for the question, and turned to fully face the door. "Wait, no one told me about a password," he said.

"Then I can't let you in."

"Seriously?"

"You could always try to guess it."

"Just let him in," a second, exasperated voice replied before Jack had the chance.

"But he doesn't know the password!"

"There _is_ no password."

"Then how can we be sure we're not letting people in who aren't supposed to be here?"

"Please tell me that's not a serious question."

Jack rolled his eyes as the two continued to debate and walked around to the side of the house to where he knew a window to be. Thankfully, it was unlocked and he successfully managed to haul it open and climb through.

"Breaking and entering!" Lleu gasped in mock horror from where he still stood by the door. "As a Guardian, I expected more from you."

"I didn't break anything," Jack gestured to the perfectly intact window.

"But you did enter."

"Because you wouldn't let me in!"

"You didn't know the password!"

"What password?" Jack cried at the same time May, who was seated beside Ceres at the table, said, "There _is no password._ "

"Man, you guys are really bad at this secret-business," Lleu told them, crossing his arms and raising a brow.

"Will you all please shut up?" Ceres snapped at them all. "We have too much work to do to waste time. And I would like to return to my autumn duties _before_ the season's over."

"Yeah, yeah," Lleu rolled his eyes. "Just give me a minute," he said before disappearing into another room."

"Have we decided on a song yet?" Jack asked, joining them at the table and setting to work moulding his ice.

"We've been working on it," May informed him. "But it still needs work. We're hoping to sort out some of the kinks today."

"How's your reading going?" Ceres asked, pulling her case up onto the table and opening it.

Jack grimaced.

"How do you expect to participate if you can't read the sheets?"

"I can play by ear!" Jack protested.

"Don't worry, Snow Cone, I'll play it for you first," Lleu said, his weight falling heavily over Jack's shoulders.

"Is this necessary?" Jack sighed, half smooshed in his seat with his project slipping into his lap.

"Yep."

"And how are you intending to be of any use with your hands covered like that?" Ceres looked pointedly at the ridiculous heat-proof suit.

Lleu looked down at himself. "Um…"

"Take it off."

"But then it'll get too hot!"

"The window is open," May said. "Just don't get too close and Jack will be fine."

Lleu sighed dramatically and slid back upright. "Fiiiiine."

"Here are the notes," Ceres stood up, handing each of them a copy. "And when you're ready," she glanced pointedly at Lleu, "we can get started."

"I get to keep the sunglasses, though," Lleu smirked, plonking himself down on the remaining chair and sliding a pair of glasses on.

"You're… aware those are women's sunglasses, right?" May asked carefully.

"Don't be silly, May; sunglasses don't have a gender."

"Where did you even get those?" Jack grinned.

"Found 'em on the beach. Some tourist must have forgotten them or something. Oh well, finder's keepers." He grabbed his ukulele from where it was resting against the table leg. "Shall we get started?"

"Yes, _please_ ," Ceres stressed, violin already positioned under her chin. May likewise had her lap harp ready.

"Waiting on you, Snow Cone," Lleu said.

"Yeah, well, it would be done by now if you hadn't interrupted me," Jack replied, applying the finishing touches to his own, temporary instrument. "Flute is ready."

"Alright, I'll count us in," May smiled.

They played through the song three times before Ceres put her violin down in frustration. "There's still something wrong," she huffed.

"Yeah, it's really hard to see the sheet music with these on," Lleu agreed, sliding his sunglasses up so that they were resting on top of his head.

Ceres glared at him. "No, I meant there's something missing."

"Is there something wrong with the second verse, do you think?" May suggested.

"It's the whole thing! We're missing something. I just can't think what it is."

Jack stared down at his ice flute in contemplation.

"Everything has to be perfect," Ceres added.

No one argued with her. If they were going to perform this at Mother Nature's birthday then they were all in agreement.

"I have an idea!" Jack announced.

"If it's got anything to do with costumes, I'm in," Lleu strummed his ukulele.

"What? No," he grabbed his staff and headed over to the door. "I'll be right back!"

"This ought to be good," Ceres groaned, leaning back in her seat.

 

* * *

 

Jack returned exactly twenty minutes and thirty-four seconds later, directly into the main room of the cottage by way of snow globe.

"I'm back!" he announced happily. "And I brought company."

The three other seasonals looked down at the two elves – one holding a sousaphone and the other a trumpet – trotting excitedly after him.

"You've got to be kidding me," Ceres deadpanned.

"What?" Jack looked insulted. "You don't trust my judgement?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?"

"…No."

"Hey, if Snow Cone wants to give the little guys a shot, then let's give them a shot. How bad can it be?" Lleu crossed his arms.

"It's worth a try, at least," May conceded.

"Great!" Jack grinned. He grabbed his sheet music and knelt down in front of the elves. "Okay, you guys, this is what we're playing."

"Can they even read?" Ceres crinkled her nose.

"Honestly, I have no idea. They seem pretty keen, though. Should we give this a try?"

"Fine, but if things go wrong I'm blaming you."

"You know, I'm so used to that now that it would be weird if you didn't."

May counted them in again and they played exactly as they had before, except this time, on perfect cue and pitch, the horns joined them. The other three seasonals obviously hadn't expected the elves to be able play at all, judging from their expressions. Jack felt a sort of smug satisfaction in that. They may have been little minions of disaster, but damn they knew how to play an instrument.

With the horns added to their conglomeration of music, there was an added depth to the overall sound, and one that Jack felt did wonders to fix that certain _something_ that had been missing. Perhaps it had been wonder, he mused.

"Wow, who knew elves could play?" Lleu said in awe when they finished, turning to Ceres. "Even you have to admit that was pretty darn good."

"I think that's what was missing," May agreed. "Just that extra sound. The song still needs work, though, but we're definitely getting somewhere now."

"You guys reckon you can play with us on Mom's birthday?" Jack asked the two elves, who were basking in the praise. They looked to each other before nodding vigorously. "Great! But we have to keep this a secret, got it?" At their obvious confusion, he added, "It's kind of a rivalry thing between us nature spirits; we all try to one-up each other when it comes to Mom's birthday, and if they find out what we're doing this year they'll be better prepared to out-do us."

"Fine," Ceres conceded. "They can stay. But they have to show up to every practice and they'd better not tell anyone!"

"Can they even talk?" Lleu frowned.

"I've never heard them talk," Jack shrugged. "Do you guys promise to keep this a secret?"

The elves agreed excitedly.

"Alright then, welcome to the group!"


	87. Multilingual

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um yeah... sorry? It feels like it's been forever. I won't bore you with details.
> 
> This isn't a request (for the first time in however long it's been) - sorry - I'm just feeling a little down at the moment (I'm fine, I promise) and thought writing something silly would help. So here's one from my own list of ideas. Well, my own ideas with a little RotG/GoC wiki facts thrown in.
> 
> Disclaimed.
> 
> Edit: It has come to my attention that daddy longlegs aren't actually spiders

Jack stared at the scene before him. And stared some more. And, for the heck of it, stared a little bit more after that. He was 98% sure he was hallucinating. Because there was no way Nicholas St. North was having a conversation with a spider. It just wasn't… logical, even for someone as logic-defying as Santa Claus.

"Yes, but you will not be catching much in here, my friend," North was saying to the spider, a rather large daddy longlegs, if Jack wasn't mistaken. He paused, as if the spider was replying. "Because, as you can see, we are at North Pole! There are not many insects around here, no?"

Jack silently disagreed; Bunny could certainly be an insect when he wanted to be, pest that he often was. But, then, Bunny wasn't at the Pole, was he?

North suddenly burst into raucous laughter, startling Jack from his musing. Apparently spiders were funny. Who knew?

"Uh, North?" he called, finally stepping into the room. "You do realise you're talking to a spider, right?"

North turned to face him, a big smile on his face. "Ah, Jack! Welcome!" he greeted warmly. His attention returned to the spider. "No, I do not think he intended to insult you."

Jack raised a brow, unsure whether to be concerned or amused.

"To answer your question, Jack: no, but also yes! Daddy longlegs, you see, are not actually spiders, though they are arachnids. It would seem our small friend here accidentally stowed away. I was just telling him he will have to move further south; there is not much to eat for a spider here."

Jack's gaze darted quickly from North to the fraud-spider and back again. "Um, okay…" _All that eggnog must've finally gotten to him._

"So what brings you here?" North asked, completely oblivious to the younger spirit's bafflement.

"Oh, you know, just stopping by," Jack waved his staff a little, eyes firmly on North and not the daddy longlegs dangling innocently from the rafters. "Thought I'd come check in and see how you're doing…" He'd expected the usual 'all is well, Christmas preparations are all in order' that he usually got. Not… this.

"I am doing well!" North placed his hands on his hips. "Everything is on track, like always."

"Good," Jack said lamely. He wondered if there was a polite way of pointing out the problem with the scene in front of him. "That's good."

"I am sure, if you ask nicely, Jack would be willing to take you," North suddenly said to the spider, as if in response to a question. "No, no, he is good boy. He will not squish you."

Screw it; he'd never been one for subtlety anyway. "North, you know 'arachnids' can't talk, right?"

North looked at him like he'd gone a little loopy. "Bah! Of course they can! They always have good stories to tell," he waved at him flippantly.

"No, really."

From the look he was receiving, Jack decided the older man wasn't kidding.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously," North nodded. "Just because you do not understand, does not mean they have nothing to say, no? Is it not the same for you and the wind?"

Well, he had a point, Jack supposed. "So what you're telling me is that you speak spider. Or not-spider. Or whatever."

"Well, bug, actually, but is close enough. I also speak hamster and leech," he stated proudly. "Children's pets are often very knowledgeable in what child wants for Christmas if they did not write letter, you see."

"I guess that makes sense," Jack frowned. He supposed this meant he was about to become a taxi for an arachnid. "So, uh, I'm gonna head off then, if the thing wants a lift." This was more weird than he could handle for one day. He'd probably think it was pretty cool once it'd processed properly, though. "Did he say where he wants to go?"

North turned to the daddy longlegs. "He says he does not mind, as long as there is food."

Jack nodded, scooping up the arachnid and depositing it gently in his pocket. "Better hang on," he warned. "I'll catch you later, North!" he called, already halfway down the hall.

 

* * *

 

"Okay, home sweet home," Jack said, cautiously holding his hand out so his passenger could climb out. He carefully settled it on a leaf. "You're in the Warren," he explained, feeling a little weird. "Home of one grumpy, overgrown rabbit." He paused. "Get him to walk into one of your webs and we'll call it even."

Jack had no idea if the daddy longlegs had understood, let alone agreed, but oh well. The mental image of the unsuspecting Pooka getting tormented by an arachnid (which, he noted gleefully, could never be traced back to him – this was hardly the only spider... or not-spider in the garden, after all) was reward enough.


	88. Whale of a Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Shamangirl1

Upon reflection, it really should have come as no surprise that Jamie and Sophie would check in their Christmas present to see the Guardians’ homes, Jack mused as he tightened his grip on Sophie. Jamie, who clung to him like a backpack, marvelled at the sight of the countless cities soaring beneath them. Sophie had her head buried in Jack’s shoulder, not comfortable with the height.  
  
“This is amazing!” Jamie cried, struggling to be heard over the rushing wind around them.  
  
Jack grinned at his enthusiasm. “How’s your grip?” he called back.   
  
“I’m good!”  
  
The last thing Jack wanted was Jamie slipping and plummeting however many kilometres up they were (they’d had to fly pretty high to avoid the kids being spotted by the people below. It probably would have been a bit hard to explain why two kids were magically soaring through the sky).  
  
The landing was just as smooth as always, even with the added weight. As soon as Jack’s feet touched down on the Island of the Sleepy Sands, Jamie flung himself off. Sophie required a little more coaxing.  
  
“So this is where the Sandman lives?” Jamie asked, turning on the spot to take in the sight.  
  
The island was both spectacular and rather plain. It was reminiscent of an octopus with the way tendrils swirled out from the centre and settled in the surrounding ocean, but there was very little to see except sand, sand, and more sand, heaped up in dunes that stretched as far as the eye could see. Jack vaguely remembered someone telling him it was a shooting star or something.  
  
“Yup,” he nodded, starting to walk along one of the dunes. The kids hurried to keep up with him. “But I doubt Sandy’s here; he has a lot of dreams to deliver and all that.”  
  
Jamie hesitated. “Is it okay for us to be here, then?”  
  
Jack waved a hand at him flippantly as he scooped up Sophie, who squealed excitedly, and swung her up onto his shoulders. “He won’t mind,” he reassured. “Besides, there’s not really much here. There is one thing I wanted to show you guys, though.”  
  
“What?” Jamie asked. But Jack refused to answer beyond telling him it was a ‘surprise’, much to the boy’s frustration. As they walked, he continued trying to guess what the surprise was, with Sophie throwing in a few comments here and there, progressively getting weirder and more outlandish as time went by.  
  
“Why would there be a ski slope on Sandy’s island?” Jack raised a brow at Jamie’s latest suggestion. “The place is literally called the ‘Island of the Sleepy Sands.”  
  
Jamie shrugged like that cleared everything up.  
  
“Well, we’re here,” Jack stopped abruptly.  
  
The three of them stared out at a small cove shaped by one of the tendrils. The water here was a much lighter blue than elsewhere, hinting to its shallower depth, but they still couldn’t see the ocean floor.  
  
Jamie and Sophie gazed around, but there was nothing to see that they hadn’t seen on the journey there.  
  
“So what’s the surprise?” he asked, his brow furrowed in confusion as he looked up at Jack.  
  
Jack merely grinned and poked the surface of the water with the butt of his staff. Instantly a line of frost shot out from the contact, probing further out to sea before a wave broke over it and split it into tiny fractals. Barely a moment passed – the kids were still staring at him like he was a few flakes short of a snow day – before the heads of three women broke the surface.  
  
“Well, well,” the dark haired woman in the middle smiled. “The infamous Jack Frost finally deems us worthy of a visit.”  
  
“Yeah, sorry,” Jack rubbed the back of his neck. “Just been busy, I guess.”  
  
The woman on the right, whose hair looked almost like seaweed, ‘hmph’ed. “Too busy to spare a few minutes to say hello? But never mind that,” her eyes locked onto Jamie and Sophie. “Who are _these_ adorable little ones?”  
  
“They can see you!” the one on the left, her hair cut short and decorated with seashells, beamed at him. “Look, look,” she jostled the middle woman, “the girl is _touching_ him!”  
  
“When did this happen?” the middle one asked.  
  
“About a year ago,” Jamie answered, eyes wide. Jack had a feeling he’d figured out who, or rather what, they were.  
  
“Jamie and Sophie,” Jack broke in before he could be lectured, “meet Coralline, Marina, and Pearl. Ladies, meet Jamie and Sophie.”  
  
Coralline, Marina, and Pearl ‘aww’ed at the two of them. Jack breathed a silent sigh of relief. He’d been spared. For now.  
  
“It’s such a lovely day,” Coralline gushed. “Would you like to come for a swim with us?”  
  
“Oh, um, we didn’t bring a change of clothes,” Jack said awkwardly.  
  
“Oh, pish posh,” Marina rolled her eyes. “You can just freeze it off, and these two cuties will dry in the sun.”  
  
“Besides,” Pearl added, flipping onto her back and lifting up her tail so the kids could see it, “how often do you get to swim with mermaids?”  
  
There was a sharp intake of air from above him and suddenly Jack found Sophie practically draped over his head. With a grunt he grabbed her around the waist and pried her off, plopping her down onto the sand beside her brother.  
  
“See? Sophie wants to,” Coralline said smugly.

“Can we?!” Sophie, armed with the biggest, saddest puppy-eyes Jack had ever seen, begged.

Jack knew he would be no match for that face. “Fine,” he sighed. “But not for too long; we still have to get to the North Pole and then back to Burgess by sundown.”

Sophie squealed a cheer and raced for the water where she was immediately fangirled over by the mermaids. Jamie, who was far more sensible, took a moment to remove his shirt and shoes before joining her.

“Are you coming?” the boy asked, looking back over his shoulder when he noticed Jack was still standing on the shore.

Marina placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Sweetie, Jack isn’t much of a fan of swimming,” she told him quietly, sparing the winter spirit a glance.

“Actually,” Jack cut in, tugging off his hoodie, “I think I will. I need to make sure you don’t kidnap my favourite believers. And don’t even try to pretend you wouldn’t.”

The three mermaids stared at him in obvious surprise. “Are you sure?” they asked.

“Yeah,” he nodded. He’d come a long way since the last time they’d seen him – he didn’t even falter when he immediately sank to chest-height. At their questioning (and impressed, he noted smugly) expressions, he added, “Let’s just say all I needed was a little courage and a lot of hope.”

He wasn’t sure if they understood, but they didn’t press. Jamie was plainly confused. Sophie was so absorbed in staring at Marina that he doubted she’d heard a word.

“Alright, cutie-pies,” Pearl announced. “If we’re gonna take you on the best marine tour on Earth, you’re going to need these,” she held up a couple of pearlescent scales. “Just pop them in your mouth and they’ll let you breathe underwater.”

“But don’t swallow them,” Coralline hastily added. “We wouldn’t want you to choke.”

Being able to breathe underwater certainly helped with Jack’s anxieties. That, and the utter joy rolling off the two kids in waves. The three mermaids showed them their grove, a nearby reef, and even started a game with a passing pod of dolphins (which Jack particularly enjoyed).

When it was time for them to dry off, Jack almost had to drag them out of the water. Sophie, especially, didn’t want to leave and, in the end, he’d had to promise to bring her back one day just to get her to let go of Marina. (Pearl telling them they could keep the scales probably helped, too).

When they were _finally_ dry enough that Jack thought they wouldn’t catch a cold, they started the journey to the Pole, where the kids would undoubtedly go on a sugar high, stir up the yetis, and likely conk-out on the journey home. He’d probably have to sneak them into their beds. Tooth was going to kill him. But he’d cross that bridge when he came to it; he could just give her a disarming smile or something. That ought to do it.

“Hold on tight, kiddos,” he told them, making sure his Jamie-backpack was secure and Sophie was braced for take-off. “Next stop: North’s Workshop!”


	89. Dress-Up Jack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY PARTYING PAINAPPLE! Here are a couple of your requests (plus one of SonYukiGoku'sSister's). Have a fabulous day!

"Is this _really_ necessary?" Jack grumbled, shifting a bit where he stood on a stool with his arms out to his sides.

The yeti currently measuring him grumbled something, sounding exasperated, and repositioned him. It proceeded to prattle on in a very important and dignified way. Jack didn't have the heart to tell it he didn't understand a word. Something must've shown on his face, though, because the yeti paused and gave him a deadpan look. Then it gestured to where the other washroom yetis were cleaning his hoodie. Again.

"It wasn't my fault!" Jack protested.

The yeti ignored him, taking down the last of the measurements before motioning for Jack to stay put and heading over to a shelf stacked with piles of clean laundry. Jack groaned when it came back a few moments later with a literal mountain of clothes in its arms.

Jack made to escape, only to crash into the rather unimpressed form of another, grey yeti standing behind him with its arms crossed.

The yeti from before dropped the pile of clothes into his arms, making him stumble, before pushing him in the direction of a storage cupboard full of cleaning supplies.

"You can't be serious!" Jack cried, resisting. But he wasn't strong enough and the yetis locked him inside. "Oh come on!" he banged on the door. He didn't understand the muffled reply but he had a feeling he knew exactly what they wanted. He looked down at the clothes and sighed.

"Hey," Jack banged on the storage room door a few minutes later.

A yeti warbled something questioningly.

" _Yes_ ," he rolled his eyes.

The door clicked open. Jack stepped out of the storage room, hand clamped tight around his staff as he glared at the yetis appraising him. The brown one – the one who'd been measuring him – made a twirling motion with its finger. Jack gave him a look. The yeti motioned with greater insistence.

Jack's shoulders slumped and he sighed skywards as he held his arms out and turned in a circle on the spot, trying to make it as clear as possible that he was doing this not of his own free will. The two yetis 'hmm'ed, muttering to each other. Jack tugged self-consciously on the blue button-down shirt he'd put on.

The yetis simultaneously shook their heads and gestured for him to go back into the storage room.

"What?! No!" Jack protested.

'Do it', the yetis' expressions said.

Jack threw his hands up in frustration and, with a growl, stalked back into the storage cupboard, slamming the door behind him.

And so it went for the next hour or two: Jack would be forced to put on another outfit – each more ridiculous than the last – and parade in front of the two yetis who would comment as if they were judges. Occasionally the yetis in the background would throw in comments of their own. And with each passing second Jack was getting more and more annoyed. Don't get him wrong, he enjoyed playing dress-up with Sophie, but at least with her it was fun.

So when he came out dressed in the frilliest, most ridiculous outfit he'd ever laid eyes on, well, he had to draw the line somewhere, didn't he?

"That's it," he yanked off the frilly monstrosity. "I'm done. Where's my hoodie? I don't care if it _is_ covered in ketchup, I can't take any more of this."

Another yeti meandered over, Jack's hoodie washed, dried, and neatly folded in its hands.

Jack snatched it, glaring. "Are you telling me this has been clean the whole time?!"

The yetis shrugged, gesturing to show no, not the whole time. Just most of it.

"Yeah, okay, thanks for cleaning my hoodie, but you guys have really weird hobbies and I'm going to be going now."

This time nobody stopped him.


	90. Trick or Treat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay, I had a little writer's block on this one.
> 
> Happy Halloween guys! (Even though it's not technically Halloween yet. But I'm super busy trying to prepare for my exams next week so I figured I may as well just post it now)

Jamie glanced between the two spirits standing before him. The one on the right was a face he had gotten very used to seeing, and who had promised to take him and Sophie trick or treating – Jack Frost, his favourite Guardian, spirit, uncle… well, probably his all round favourite guy. The one on the left… Jamie had never seen him before but apparently he was the spirit of Halloween, Jack-O-Lantern.

He supposed it was only fitting – it was Halloween – but he never would have expected Jack to bring the guy and ask if he could come trick or treating with them.

Normally, Jamie wouldn't have even hesitated about saying 'yes' but there was something about Jack-O that unsettled him. Maybe it was that his pumpkin hat was glowing from the light of a flame, or maybe it was the sinister grin on his face. Jamie didn't really know, but he was having a hard time disassociating the creepy dude from Pitch Black.

"So what do you say, Jamie?" Jack-O asked, smile stretching even larger. "Can I come?"

Jamie returned his attention to Jack. The winter spirit didn't seem to have a problem with it, so the guy couldn't have been bad, right? Judging from the expression on Jack's face, he would accept whatever decision Jamie made. Jamie was grateful.

"Ooh he's scared of me," Jack-O cackled, turning to Jack. "I like this kid. He's got his priorities sorted."

"I'm not scared of you," Jamie frowned.

"No? Hmm, I'll have to try harder then."

"You can come, but only if Sophie's okay with it," he decided. The last thing he wanted was his little sister to burst into tears when they were supposed to be having fun.

"I can accept that," Jack-O nodded. "Where do we find this Sophie?"

"She's probably in her room getting ready."

"Speaking of which, you probably should be, too," Jack pointed out. "How about you do that while we go see how Sophie's doing?"

Jamie might have been worried about leaving his sister alone with the two of them had it been anyone other than Jack Frost. But he trusted the winter spirit with his life, and he trusted him to take care of Sophie. "Yeah, okay." He watched the two disappear out into the hallway before heading over to his wardrobe.

It had taken him weeks to finish it, but he was quite proud of his Jack Frost costume. He'd had some help from his mom, though, of course. He quickly threw on the outfit and did his best with the wig before going off to look for Sophie and the two spirits.

He found them all in her room. Jack had Sophie on his shoulders, telling her that Jack-O only looked scary because his costume was really good. Sophie stared at the Halloween spirit warily, but at Jack's reassuring she seemed to be slowly persuaded. Jack-O looked like he was trying not to laugh.

Sophie, unlike Jamie, hadn't really known what she'd wanted to dress up as that year. She had on a pair of bunny ears, but also a fairy costume complete with wings and a wand. Jamie supposed she must've been a bunny-fairy or something.

Everyone in the room turned to him as he entered. Jack-O really did laugh, then, almost doubled over in his mirth. Jack was staring at him with wide eyes. His dumbfounded expression quickly became a grin. Jamie shifted self-consciously.

"You guys," Jack-O wheezed, "you guys really don't get Halloween, do you?"

Jack elbowed him. "Don't listen to him, Jamie. You look great!" He turned to the still laughing spirit beside him. "You probably don't know this since you usually stay in your pumpkin patch but Halloween has become a fun holiday. It's really different to what it used to be."

Jack-O abruptly stilled. Suddenly serious he said, "I'll have to fix that."

 

* * *

 

Despite her initial misgivings, Sophie must've been okay with Jack-O tagging along because in no time the four of them were heading down the street. There were heaps of kids around, all in costume. Jamie expected they'd run into his friends sooner or later.

Jack-O was surprisingly quiet, his brow gently furrowed like he was lost in thought. But the smirk ever-growing on his face made Jamie nervous. Jack must've noticed it, too, for he put a comforting hand on Jamie's shoulder and murmured, "Don't worry, he's a little weird but relatively harmless."

Somehow Jamie didn't find 'relative harmlessness' all that reassuring.

When they reached the first house, Sophie was the one to ring the doorbell (with a boost from Jamie, of course). A blonde woman answered the door and the two kids chimed the usual 'trick or treat'. Or, at least they would have, if Jack-O hadn't chosen that moment to morph his head into that of some kind of devil and roar at the lady. Sophie squealed and hid her head in Jamie's side.

The woman was obviously oblivious to the Halloween spirit's antics. "Aw, a little shy, is she?" she cooed. "Here, sweeties," she grabbed a jack-o-lantern shaped bucket from somewhere beyond the doorway and shoved a handful of candy into the two kids' own buckets. "And who are you dressed as?" she asked Jamie.

Jamie forced himself to tear his eyes away from Jack-O, who looked incredibly disappointed. "Jack Frost."

The woman smiled indulgently. "Well you look wonderful. Have a good night, you two."

Jamie said thank you on behalf of both himself and a still spooked Sophie and they retreated up the walk.

"What was that?" Jack hissed.

Jack-O heaved a sigh. "How does one get believers?"

"You okay, Soph?" Jack asked the girl, ignoring the question.

Sophie peered up at him, still clinging to her brother, and nodded. Jack smiled at her before rounding on Jack-O again.

"Could you go easy on the scaring thing? We're here to have fun."

"Oh come on, Halloween is _my_ thing," Jack-O defended. "And people have completely forgotten what it's all about!"

"Scaring people wasn't what it was about either, you know," Jack rolled his eyes.

"Pfft," Jack-O waved him off. "If we're reinventing what _my_ holiday is about then surely I should be the one to pick."

"Well could you save it for your party?"

Jack-O heaved an over-exaggerated sigh. "You can't stop me from pranks, though," he said. "I mean, pranks are a _tradition_."

Jamie wasn't sure how true that was, but Jack had gone from angry back to his usual cheerful (and mocking) self.

"Except that nobody can see you," Jack pointed out, leading the group towards the next house.

"That just makes it more fun!"

"I think you and I have a very different definition of fun."

When the owner of the next house – an older gentleman this time – Jack-O grabbed Sophie around the middle and started spinning her around. The little girl's initial cry of panic quickly morphed into peals of laughter. The poor guy looked gobsmacked. Jack looked like he wasn't sure whether to laugh or reprimand the other spirit.

"Uh, trick or treat?" Jamie said.

The old man hurriedly handed over a pile of candy and slammed the door. Jack-O cackled as he released Sophie. She looked up at him imploringly.

"Next house, kid," Jack-O winked at her.

"If you scare everyone off we won't get candy," Jamie pointed out. He was starting to feel like he was the most responsible one there.

Jack-O sighed dramatically. "Fiiiiiine," he whined. "I'll be more subtle." Jamie thought he might have heard 'kill joy' uttered under the man's breath but he couldn't be sure.

Jamie wasn't sure how waltzing into people's houses and moving things around counted as 'subtle', or knocking on walls and doors to freak people out, for that matter, but at least the effects sunk in only after they'd gotten what they'd come for.

They were starting the second block when it happened. Jamie had never, in all his years as a trick or treater, had to deal with such a situation. They'd knocked on the door of a highly decorated house on the corner and a snarky looking teenager had answered. Looking highly amused, he'd responded to the twin calls of 'trick or treat?' with 'trick'.

Jamie and Sophie stood dumbfounded for a moment, slowly registering the response.

"Oh, I like this guy," Jack-O said lowly. "And I'm going to like him even more when he's scared out of his mind."

Jack looked a tad uneasy. "Hey, go easy on him," he said.

"Jamie, may I borrow you?" Jack-O grinned, ignoring Jack.

Jack glared at him.

"What for?" Jamie asked. The teenager in the doorway stared at him funnily.

"Well, our friend over here asked for a trick. I propose we give him one." At Jamie's still suspicious expression, he added, "All you have to do is look impressive and repeat after me. I'll take care of the rest."

Jamie and Jack shared a look. The latter shrugged and Jamie heaved a sigh, nodding. He had a feeling he was going to regret this, and an even stronger one that Jack-O would have proceeded with his plot whether Jamie agreed to help or not.

"Excellent!" he beamed. "Now face our victim, try to keep your face and voice blank, and say this."

Jamie turned back to the teenager, who appeared to be about to speak, no doubt wondering why Jamie had been talking to nobody. Jamie quickly cut him off by repeating the words Jack-O recited. And was it just him or did the area around them start to grow darker?

"Were you expecting some pathetic party trick? A card trick or some impressive feat? You ignorant soul, you know nothing of the truth of Halloween. So you want a trick, do you? I'm sure the master of All Hallows' Eve would be happy to oblige."

As he spoke, the Halloween decorations around the yard started to become animated. The giant spider on the wall stretched its rubbery limbs, the skeleton hand poking out from the front of a false grave started pulling itself free, a ghost hanging from the veranda billowed about in a breeze that didn't exist, and jack-o-lanterns opened their mouths wide and laughed, little tongues of flame darting in and out.

The teen stood with eyes the size of dinner plates, a small 'eep' escaping him. In his panic, he practically threw a pile of candy at Jamie.

"Jack-O-Lantern sends his regards," Jamie said as the teenager slammed the door in their faces.

As soon as he was gone, the decorations returned to their normal states, as innocent as they had been before the quartet had arrived. Jack-O was laughing so hard he was wheezing. Jack, who had covered Sophie's eyes with his hand, looked simultaneously amused and exasperated as he tried to send a frown of disapproval at his fellow spirit. It wasn't long, though, before he too was laughing.

"Stupendous! Marvellous!" Jack-O managed, catching his breath and wiping a tear from his eye. He grinned at Jamie. "I'll make a spook of you yet!"

"No you won't," Jack cut in. "I will not have you turn my favourite believer into a zombie."

"Ah, well," Jack-O sighed. Winking at Jamie he said, "Maybe when you die, then."

Jamie shifted uncomfortably.

"Onwards!" Jack-O bellowed, spinning on his heel and marching back towards the footpath. "We have more people to scare!"

"Is he always like this?" Jamie asked.

"Pretty much," Jack shrugged. "When he's awake, anyway. He sleeps for most of the year. C'mon," he grabbed Sophie's hand and started after Jack-O. "We should probably keep an eye on him. And we're bound to find your friends soon."

Jamie cast one final fleeting glance to the closed door behind them before making to catch up. He had a feeling it was going to be a long night.


	91. Bunny and the Bunnies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by RubixSoul
> 
> Hey guys! This one was supposed to be cute but got a little... feely at the end ^^; Sorreh (The title sounds like a band name XD)
> 
> Disclaimed

There were rabbits in Bunny's Warren. And, no, ha-ha, it wasn't him. Bunny grumbled to himself as he picked up the kit before him by the scruff of its neck and brought it up to eye-level. The little critter wriggled. Where there was one rabbit, Bunny knew, there were probably about five more not far behind. He sniffed the air, his ears pointing every which way. Yep, that confirmed it: there was a _pest_ in his Warren.

"Frostbite!" he barked, storming in the direction he now knew Jack to be. The rabbit was still struggling in his grip and he shifted his position to hold it better.

He found Jack running around in a bit of a flurry by the dye river, kits hanging all about him like decorations on a Christmas tree – two in his arms, one in his hood, and one poking its head out of his pocket. His head darted up at Bunny's approach.

"Cottontail!" he sighed with relief and hurried over. "We've been looking everywhere for you!"

Before Bunny could protest the ridiculous nickname, Jack distributed the rabbits in his arms to his hood and pocket respectively before snatching the kit off Bunny and holding it up to his face.

"You can't just run off, Cottontail," he reprimanded it. 'Cottontail' twitched its nose.

"Frost."

"Hey, Bunny," Jack finally acknowledged him.

"Why are there rabbits in my Warren?" he asked lowly, eyes narrowed. "And the answer had better be good."

Jack blinked. "Oh, right, I found them topside," he explained. "They were all alone and I figured, who better to take care of rabbits than an actual rabbit? So, meet Flopsy, Mopsy," he pointed to the two in his hood with his staff, "Cottontail," the one in his arms, "Peter Rabbit, and Benjamin Bunny," the two in his pocket who were starting to chew on the edges of the fabric.

Bunny barely registered the names, too caught up on the first part of what Jack had said. The kid had a serious issue with picking up strays. "What do I look like, a babysitter?! I will not have rabbits in here eating everything!"

"Well, _you_ ' _re_ a rabbit," Jack shrugged.

"Actually, I'm technically a Pooka. Not a rabbit."

"Wait, what? What's a Pooka? You said you were a rabbit."

"I said I was a bunny, actually–"

"Same difference."

"–and Pooka are similar to rabbits, but not the same. I'm not even from this galaxy."

"Wait," Jack grabbed Peter before he could fall. "Are you trying to tell me you're an alien?"

"That's one way of lookin' at it," Bunny conceded. "But that's not the point. The point is ya can't go bringin' rabbits in here. They'll destroy the garden and soon I'll be overrun by 'em."

"But I don't know how to take care of rabbits!" Jack protested, gesturing widely and almost dropping Cottontail. "And they're only babies!"

"They'll grow. Go find some actual rabbits to look after 'em," Bunny dismissed, turning away. He had more important things to worry about than the whims of Jack Frost.

Jack cut him off on a burst of wind. "Oh, come on, Bunny." He lifted Cottontail and shoved her towards Bunny's face. "How could you say no to this little face?"

Cottontail squirmed.

"Easy. No." They reminded him too much of the past, anyway.

"What if I do something wrong and they die? I'm too cold," Jack pleaded.

Bunny heaved a sigh. He didn't want them around, true, but he didn't want them dead, either. "Take 'em to North," he said finally. "He'll prob'ly be able to find ya some kids who'll take care of 'em."

"Really?!"

"Yes. Now I want all of ya out of my Warren before I drag ya out." Bunny waved at the kid, "Shoo!"

Jack had already taken off towards the tunnels, though, the little kits squirming at the speed and chilly wind. "Thanks, Bunny!" Jack called over his shoulder before disappearing from sight.

Bunny muttered to himself as he went back to checking egg production. He was going to have to set up wards to prevent something like this happening again. Jack would probably still find a way in, though. He always did. But, for now, he would immerse himself in his work and distract himself from the other, similar little faces from the depths of his memories that he had unwillingly been reminded of.


	92. Of Blue Ink and Eyebrows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Arc: Hello readers! I'm HeavensLuminousArc. :D -flails arms around-
> 
> MP: And me, your friendly neighbourhood Pipefox ;)
> 
> Arc: So what am I doing here? I'm here becaaaauusee~!
> 
> MP: WE DID A COLAB AAAAAAAAAA *incoherent screaming*
> 
> Arc: -Sets a party popper on fire- ... I think I did this wrong. -part popper explodes and confettii is scattered- Oh, never mind :3
> 
> MP: Enjoy~
> 
> Arc: HeavensLuminousArc and MugetsuPipefox do not claim ownership over "Rise of the Guardians" in any way. It is the property of Dreamworks. Please support the official release~! Enjoy the show~!

Pitch was sleeping.

Jack blinked and ran the thought through his head again.

Pitch was _sleeping._

 _Pitch_ was sleeping.

**_Pitch was sleeping._ **

Since when did Pitch _sleep_? He was eternal nightmares and fear, a creature of the night. And here he was, sitting with his head on a funny angle in his armchair in the library, book still open in his lap. Asleep. And was that a little bit of drool dribbling down his chin?

The winter spirit snorted.

It was so absurd that it almost made him Black. The King of Nightmares. The thing that went bump in the night. The monster in the closet. The being that haunted children's dreams. And here he was, sleeping like a normal person.

Jack smiled and tiptoed closer to the sleeping figure.

 _So the Great Nightmare King has his nap time, too, huh?_ he felt his lips curl into an involunatry smirk, _'I wonder if he has dreams.'_

He looked so peaceful, like the daily frustration that was his life (most of which may or may not have been partially Jack's fault) had never even existed in the first place. Such a lax expression seemed almost out of place on such a creature's face.

Jack poked the shadow's face cautiously and took a step back, covering his mouth to muffle a snicker. Pitch scrunched up his nose and mumbled incoherently before shifting. Jack waited for the sleeping man to settle again before he approached once more.

There was something... off. Jack couldn't quite pinpoint what it was. His white hair bounced as he tilted his head and observed Pitch's face. Eyes? Check. Nose and mouth? Again, check. Then what was...?

_Oh._

That's what it was.

Pitch had no eyebrows.

 _Well, we're just going to have to fix this aren't we?_ he thought, already conjuring a devious plan.

Now, where could one obtain a permanent marker?

 

* * *

 

Pitch blinked blearily as he returned to consciousness. He stretched and felt a satisfying 'pop' while his eyes returned focus. Dazed, he gazed around the room. For a disorientating moment he didn't know where he was. But then he spotted the book, still open to the page he'd left it. Ah, he must have fallen asleep, then.

A soft whinny from the side of the room made him turn. A pair of nightmares neighed at each other, glancing at him occasionally. They nudged each other and flicked their ears.

"Tell me what?" Pitch asked, eyes narrowed, as he interpreted their mutterings. The two Nightmares seemed to be arguing over who would inform him of... something. They bickered over whether they should even tell him at all.

He found it all highly suspicious.

"Either you tell me right now or I'll turn the pair of you into hourglasses," he threatened.

The horses made a high pitched noise, telling him it was nothing, before running down the hall. Pitch didn't buy it for a second. Something was up and he was going to find out what if it was the last thing he ever did.

He stood from his chair with a sweep of his robes, stalking towards the doorway with his book tucked under his arm. The floor crunched beneath his feet.

Wait. Crunched?

He glanced down and glared hard at the melting patch of frost covering the floor in front of his door. The doorknob was coated with more ice. He sighed. That could only mean one thing.

Jack Frost had been there.

He had known the boy for hardly a year or two - longer if you counted the yearly party on Halloween - but he'd learned that where there was frost, Jack Frost would be nearby. And where there was Frost, there was trouble.

And then he realised something else. Something worse.

Jack Frost had been there _while he'd been sleeping._

Biting back a curse, Pitch pinched the bridge of his nose. He marched down the hall, careful to avoid the patches of melting ice coating the floor and wall.

Forcefully shoving open the door of a room he knew Nightmares to be loitering in, he shouted, "Somebody get me a mirror!"

The nightmares stood frozen (luckily not literally) as they took in the sight of their master. There was a mixture of nickers and snorts, avoided glances, and blatant confusion.

"Get me a mirror!" he repeated and the horses took off in a frenzy. Pitch sighed through his nose and waited. A few of his minions returned empty handed (hooved?) and choose to wait for their sisters, knowing they wouldn't find one.

After five minutes of pacing and cursing the Guardian of Fun, a quarter of a dozen horses returned, led by his trusted favourite, Onyx, who held a good sized mirror shard in her maw.

Hesitantly, she trotted over to him while her companions backed off and hid in the crowd of waiting Nightmares.

"It's about time," Pitch snapped, snatching it from her. She whinnied and back-tracked.

Catching the minimal light in a way that would allow him to see his reflection, Pitch held the shard in front of his face. He immediately knew what was wrong. And, really, all he wanted to do was kill something.

Preferably a certain winter spirit.

 

* * *

 

Jack sneezed loudly, derailing North's _fascinating_ explanation about the perfect degree of curling for Christmas ribbons.

"Bless you."

Tooth fluttered over, concerned, "Are you alright, Jack?" She inched closer and forced his mouth open, looking at his teeth, "Are you sick? Do you have a cavity?"

"Calm down, shiela," Bunny rolled his eyes. "He's a winter spirit. I doubt he can even catch a cold."

"Tell that to his pneumonia that one time," she countered, rounding on him.

"I'm fine, guys," Jack laughed. How did that saying go? 'You sneeze when someone's talking about you behind your back'? He gripped the blue permanent marker in his pocket. Yeah, something like that. "It was just a one-off sneeze. I'm not sick."

Jack couldn't wait for their next battle with the Nightmare King. That is, if the marker hadn't faded by then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up, guys: Arc and I'll be doing a bunch of other colabs, but not just for RotG (although we're planning a RotG/SU one ;)) - there's a bunch of Miraculous: Ladybug ones, too, if you're interested :3 For more info, see my or Arc's profile page! (bulletins will be posted when new fics are done)
> 
> Arc: Bye readers :D


	93. Warnings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've been slack. Apologies. I'll try to work on this fic at least a little bit every day if I can.
> 
> On a side note, I've had to factory reset my laptop (it had problems) - but don't worry! I backed up my list of requests :3 (I did not, however, back up the word-for-word emails of said requests because I am a forgetful loon, so if you get a PM from me to discuss a request, that's why)
> 
> (Also I haven't been able to reinstall Microsoft Office yet, so this was written on WordPad (hence any spelling errors - there is no spellcheck (or formatting) on WordPad, but I did use my browser's spellcheck when I uploaded it so there's that at least)
> 
> Enough rambling, though! Sheitan Otori, here is your LONG awaited request (I am so sorry)
> 
> Disclaimed
> 
> EDIT: SORRY! I forgot to mention this one is set shortly after the events of 'Retaliation'

"He did _what_?"

The Sandman winced at Mother Nature's calm tone. Her expression and posture, much like her voice, appeared completely at ease, as if the information he'd just dumped on her was a mere trifling matter. But Sandy had known Seraphina for many, many centuries. He could see in the way her shoulders tensed, the way her hands clenched into fists, and the steadily burning fire in her eyes that she was far from calm.

She was practically seething.

Sandy really wished there was a subtle way of saying 'don't shoot the messenger'. Against his better judgement, he nodded, confirming she had interpreted his symbols correctly.

Seraphina pursed her lips. He would have thought her only mildly irritated if it hadn't been for the fact that he knew her as well as he did. This was probably not going to end well.

"Thank you for alerting me, Sanderson," she said distractedly. "I will see to it that something like this does not happen again."

Sandy nodded again, more hesitantly than before. He quickly conveyed via means of dreamsand the civil population of Burgess.

"You need not worry," Seraphina waved him off. "My business is with Pitch Black, and him alone."

Sandy took his cue to leave. He couldn't help but think of the last time she'd said something similar. That had been a bad day for Atlantis. Perhaps he would keep a close eye on Burgess tonight.

 

* * *

 

"I'll kill him," Lleu said darkly. He rolled up imaginary sleeves, "Just point me in the right direction and I'll do it. Don't even try to stop me."

"That will not be necessary," Seraphina raised a brow. She couldn't remember the last time her summer seasonal had gotten so worked up. It would seem the others were in agreement - another unusual sight - if their expressions were anything to go by. She had the distinct feeling that, rather than stopping him, they would have gladly aided Lleu in his murderous endeavour.

"You can't honestly expect us to let this go," May frowned, her tone firm but not loud.

"You can if you want," Lleu countered, "but like hell I will. He attacked him. He would've let him die!"

"You know as well as I that something as trivial as heat will not kill Jack," Seraphina replied sternly.

"Why are you taking _his_ side?!"

"I say we march on down there and show that _frictum cicerem_ exactly what happens when he messes with one of us!" Ceres declared.

Seraphina tried very hard not to be amused by the fact that her oldest seasonal had just called her father a 'roasted chickpea'. This was why she had wanted to avoid telling them at all. They, especially Ceres, who was from a time when war and defending one's honour and the honour of one's friends and family, were far too quick to jump to a violent retribution. Even Lleu, who was for the most part laid-back, was easy to rile up in such a situation, and it had not escaped Seraphina's notice how close he had become with his winter counterpart.

She wasn't sure how they'd even found out (and subsequently come to interrogate her), but she figured she'd better nip things in the bud, so to speak. It wasn't that they were incapable of standing up to Pitch Black (they truly were a force to be reckoned with when they wanted to be), nor that she was taking her father's side, it was merely that their actions had the potential to escalate into something worse, especially if Pitch did not take them seriously (which he likely wouldn't).

"As I said before," she cut in, before the three's war plans could get any further, "that will not be necessary."

The three turned to her with murderous expressions (well, mildly murderous on May's part - she was far too obedient and held too much respect for Mother Nature to speak her mind plainly).

"That does not mean I will sit by and allow him to get away with this," she continued, stopping any protests before they could begin. "He has harmed Jack, and thus he has earned my fury. I will see to this matter myself."

 

* * *

 

The lair of Pitch Black was as cold and desolate as always. Had she expected he'd hire an interior decorator by now? No, not really. Cold and desolate suited him rather well.

As she had expected, her intrusion was not left ignored, a swarm of Nightmares running up to block her path. It seems he has regained some semblance of control, then, she mused. But something as trivial as animated sand was hardly a match for her.

With a flippant wave of her hand, Seraphina sent a gale-force wind surging through the cavern, tearing the grains straight from the Nightmares' bodies and scattering them in a hellish mockery of a dust storm.

"Show yourself, Pitch Black," her voice echoed. "I have not the time nor patience for your games."

"It's unlike you to pay a visit to poor 'daddy-dearest', Emily Jane," Pitch mocked, his thin body oozing out of the shadows.

"Mother Nature or Seraphina, but don't you _dare_ call me by that name," she seethed.

"What brings you to my humble abode?" he sneered, completely ignoring her anger.

"It has come to my attention that you have malicious intents towards one of my charges," she said tersely, stepping forward and halving the distance between them. "And so I come with a warning."

Pitch seemed to smile at the accusation. His whole demeanour as he waved for her to continue reeked of smugness.

He was still taller than her, she realised as she invaded his personal space. It grated on her already irritated nerves. "Repeat an incident like this again and maybe you'll find you no longer have a hole to scurry back to." Her words were no more than a whisper, almost inaudible against the backdrop of shaking earth and stone. Dust fell from the ceiling, threatening a cave-in. "And then where will you hide when my children come looking for you?"

Pitch appeared completely nonchalant at her threat, but she could see a glimmer of fear in his eyes. It was no secret that he was wary of her. Seraphina usually remained a neutral party in any conflicts not directly concerning her, but when she did join the fight... well, you'd better hope you weren't on the opposing side. And Jack Frost was very much her concern.

"Duly noted," Pitch replied carelessly. He turned and began leisurely strolling away. "Now, if that was all I must ask that you leave."

"Do not test me, Pitch Black," Seraphina warned, but she left all the same. To accentuate her words she made a point of collapsing the tunnel on her way out.

Perhaps she'd let him off too easy - he'd never been one to heed warnings, after all - but she remembered Sanderson's point about the town so close by. If she were to give him the retribution he deserved they would likely also suffer for it. If nothing else, Jack would be displeased. Maybe she would subtly give the other three permission to terrorise Pitch at their leisure; on a small-scale, of course. She couldn't allow them to get carried away, after all... too much, at least.

* * *


	94. Mutiny

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Truth is this would've been out sooner but there was a fight scene and I procrastinated it...
> 
> SO! A combined request from 13BlueBananas and Fenrir Wylde Razgriz. I hope you enjoy :3
> 
> (Aquilo is the Roman form of Boreas)
> 
> Disclaimed.

This was not really how Jack had wanted his day to go. Snow days and terrorising adults? Yes. Challenges to his authority? Hmm... not so much. But since when was Lady Luck ever on his side, anyway?

He resisted the strong urge to sigh and at least _tried_ to pay attention to what Aquilo was whinging about. Probably the same thing as last time.

"I am a god!" he was yelling, a harsh wind zipping around him and knocking snow from nearby branches. "I am countless years older than you, _boy!_ "

Jack closed his eyes so Aquilo wouldn't see him roll them. Yep, same old, same old. "So let me guess," he interrupted, "you're here to enact clause fifty seven and challenge me for authority in the Winter Court. _Again._ "

Honestly, Jack would have happily just handed it over to the guy if he hadn't known Aquilo would get a little carried away and create another ice age (and also that Old Man Winter would skin him alive).

"I will not lose to you again, little snowdrop," Aquilo growled.

"Didn't you learn your lesson last time?"

In all actuality, the last three times he'd had to fight the guy had all been really close calls. Aquilo wasn't the ex-god of the North Wind for nothing, after all. He'd likely gotten stronger since the last time, but then again, so had Jack. That didn't particularly mean he was looking forward to having to deal with the guy again, though.

"I have only learned just how unsuited you are to govern your superiors."

Jack really did sigh this time. " _Fine_ ," he groaned. "You know the drill; go grab your witness and I'll meet you at the castle in two hours, got it?"

The smile Aquilo gave him could rival Pitch's on the creep-o-metre. "I look forward to it."

Jack was completely unsurprised when he reached the ice castle designated as Court Headquarters to find Aquilo and his two sons, Calais and Zetes, already waiting for him.

"Nice of you to join us!" Aquilo's grin was feral. "For a moment we'd thought you'd chickened out."

"My usual witness was busy so I had to go find someone else," Jack shrugged, touching down a short distance away. He wasn't overly heartbroken that Snow-Miser couldn't make it – he considered the older spirit a friend but they weren't very close. He much preferred his alternative, even if she had been a little put-out at first (until he'd mentioned who he was fighting, of course. Then she'd become almost scarily excited).

"And where is this 'someone else'?" Aquilo asked, pointedly glancing around. But there was nothing to be seen but snow, the castle, and themselves.

"Right here!" a new voice replied.

They all looked up as Ceres joined them. And she wasn't alone.

"Sorry we're late; May and I had to stop and find some jackets," Lleu apologised. As he'd said, he and May had added winter coats to their usual attire. "Don't ask where we got them."

"Ceres, it's been a while," Aquilo sneered.

"Not long enough, unfortunately," Ceres snapped back haughtily. "But I wasn't going to miss watching you getting your hiney handed to you by a neophyte. I'm just sorry I missed the first three times."

Aquilo ruffled his wings and scowled at her. "Shouldn't you be off pining after your daughter?"

Ceres' glare was murderous. "Shouldn't _you_ be shutting up before I break your arms and legs so Jack wins by default?"

"Wait, you have a daughter?" Jack spun around to face her.

"None of your business."

"It kind of is," Lleu helpfully pointed out, "seeing as it would make him her uncle, in a way."

"Her name is Proserpina," May explained. "She is one of my spring spirits." At the weird look Jack gave her, she added, "What, did you think you were the only one who governs a court?"

"I guess I never really thought about it," Jack shrugged.

"Can we get this over with, please?" Ceres interjected. "I'd like to see him fail quickly so I can stop looking at him."

"Why, of all people, did you have to pick _her?_ " Aquilo grouched.

"There were a couple of reasons," Jack confessed, slamming the butt of his staff into the snow to create a large circle of ice in front of the castle. "Firstly because it's her off-season, so I didn't think she'd be busy. Secondly, I figured she wouldn't pass up an opportunity to potentially see me get beaten up; which would also make her an unbiased witness."

Ceres didn't look like she was going to deny any of that as she marched over to the other two seasonals and grew herself a chair made of vines. May did the same with her own plants. Lleu looked at them enviously. The girls looked right back, completely void of sympathy.

"Hey, Snow Coooone?"

"What?" Jack asked suspiciously.

"Could you make me a chair, please?"

"It'll just melt if you sit on it, though."

"Not if you make it one of those unmeltable ones like those snowflakes you gave us," he countered, pulling out his own snowflake from one of the jacket's pockets. It took Jack a moment to fully register the fact that Lleu carried it around with him.

"But then there'd be a random chair out the front of the castle for, like, ever," Jack pointed out. Well, forever until Old Man Winter turned up and smashed it, of course.

Lleu looked utterly depressed, but Jack wasn't 100% sure it was genuine. "You'd really make your favourite big bro sit in a puddle? _Really?_ "

"You could just stand," May raised a brow.

"Shush. People with chairs don't get to have input in this conversation."

Jack rolled his eyes but relented, if only so they could get the whole thing over with and he'd get to go back to snow days and fun things. But, of course, Lleu wasn't satisfied until the 'chair' was more of a throne, which took longer to make than the match would probably last.

"You're incorrigible," Jack huffed when the thing was _finally_ done.

"Ah, 'tis a mighty big word, Snow Cone," Lleu said regally, sitting ramrod straight in his throne. He clapped twice, "Now, on with the entertainment!"

"I bet he planned this entire thing," May whispered to Ceres. Ceres grunted in reply.

"Are you done stalling?" Aquilo asked, stepping into the confines of the circle.

"Hey, it's not my fault he's insufferable!" Jack protested, joining him.

"The next person to insult the king shall be beheaded!" Lleu called from the sidelines. He paused. "Unless your name is Jack Frost, in which case you shall be hugged in the heat-proof suit!"

Jack looked back at him over his shoulder and was not the least bit surprised to find the guy had put on one of those paper party crowns. He was starting to think May was right. Lleu probably _had_ planned this. Though, it was probably just as likely he'd been carrying the crown around – he _did_ hang out with April Fool, after all. ...Actually, for all Jack knew, April could be hiding in the snow, waiting for the perfect opportunity to scare the crap out of all of them.

"I do not appreciate your witness," Aquilo hissed.

"That's okay, he appreciates himself enough to make up for it," Jack grinned, shifting into a fighting stance. "Same rules as last time – first one out of the circle loses."

"Bring it on!"

This would be nothing like his fight with Bunny, Jack knew as he jumped out of the way of Aquilo's surge of icy wind. Beyond 'no outside help' there weren't any actual rules, and Aquilo had no qualms about fighting dirty. The ex-god would probably kill him if given half a chance (not that it was really possible, all things considered).

Aquilo's absolute mastery over the North Wind definitely gave him an advantage. If it managed to hit him, Jack would be out of the circle in a heartbeat, being as light as he was. His own wind did its best to counter the attacks, but it was essentially fighting itself, which made things a bit more complicated. Jack would be relying heavily on his ice for this.

Jack sent a blast of ice shards at Aquilo's feet, but the latter easily dodged with a mighty flap of his wings. Now airborne, Aquilo became the eye of his windstorm, assaulting Jack with barrage after barrage and forcing him to bury the end of his staff into the ice to keep himself grounded.

He had to go on the offensive. If he was forced to defend the whole time he'd lose. Shutting his eyes, Jack felt the air currents billowing around him, trying to read their patterns. He launched himself towards his opponent with a burst of speed, waiting right until the last second to have his wind counter Aquilo's. The force was almost too strong for him to contain, though, and he only managed to nick a surprised Aquilo with a few sharpened snowflakes before the force of the gale sent him flying sideways.

He landed with his feet only just within the boundary.

"Did anyone think to bring popcorn?" Lleu asked the girls. "Oh, better yet, Ceres give me some kernels and I'll _make_ some popcorn."

"Lleu, this is a serious matter," May frowned.

"I'm still allowed to enjoy it, though."

Jack tuned them out, darting closer to the centre of the circle just as he was once again assaulted by Aquilo's wind. Unprepared, the force tossed him precariously close to the edge, and he only managed to stay within bounds by digging his staff and nails into the ice. Even then he could feel himself slipping.

"Might as well give up now," Aquilo chortled. "Save yourself the embarrassment."

"I'm pretty sure that would be _more_ embarrassing," Jack called back.

"I know right!" Lleu shouted back. "The guy's wearing a _dress_. You can't lose to a guy in a dress!"

"It's a toga!" Aquilo snapped at him.

"Dude. It's a dress. You're not wearing pants. Please invest in some; it's not pretty and there are ladies present."

"Now listen here, you little–"

Jack took advantage of Aquilo's distraction, letting go of his hold on the ground. He flew back several feet before his own wind caught him and launched him skywards like a cannonball. There was no gale above the older spirit.

With a battle cry he propelled downwards, and, aiming for Aquilo's head, sent forth a maelstrom of hail and wind. Aquilo was caught off guard and the impact hit him dead-on target, forcing him out of the sky. He crashed into the ice below with a loud crack.

"You'll pay for that, you insolent whelp," he growled, pushing himself up from the now badly shattered ice. Jack was disheartened to see there wasn't a scratch on him.

Jack's wind blew against Aquilo with all the force it could muster, but it wasn't enough. With a single slicing movement, the ex-god cut straight through it and launched himself into the air once more. Jack barely had time to register what was happening before he was dangling in the air, held up only by Aquilo's tight grip around his throat.

"How on Earth did you win those past three battles?" the man pondered in an almost conversational tone.

Jack clawed at his grip, trying to free himself, but Aquilo only tightened his fist.

"Let him go!" he heard Lleu yell, but while it was a nice sentiment it was futile.

"We cannot interfere or Jack will lose by default," Ceres snapped.

"Are you blind?! Who cares about that?!"

"You should know how important this is," May said soothingly, but she was obviously concerned, too. "If Aquilo becomes the new spirit of winter..."

The implication didn't need to be spoken; it was clear enough. Jack would lose his title, his authority, potentially his position in respect to Mother Nature – he would no longer be _the_ winter seasonal. The other three below wouldn't be his seasonal siblings anymore, though he supposed they would still technically all be 'related' through Mother Nature. And Aquilo would cover the world in a permanent blanket of white.

Panic fuelled adrenaline. Jack stopped struggling and shut his eyes.

"Oh? Are you giving up?" Aquilo sneered.

Jack ignored him, focussing instead on the frozen wasteland around them. He could feel his wind responding to him, fluttering around the edges of the circle but not close enough that the older spirit would notice. He would need to act quickly – he could already feel himself falling into unconsciousness from the lack of air.

_Now!_

The wind immediately reacted to his unspoken wish, dragging in storm clouds with alarming speed and whipping up a whirlwind of snow around them. He silently apologised to the five outside the circle, who were probably being blown about by the spontaneous blizzard (though Calais and Zetes would be fine).

Aquilo reacted with his own shield of air, trying to repel the icy attack. But all it did was make the storm stronger. Jack struck out with his staff, slamming the butt into Aquilo's gut and forcing the spirit to release him. He fell only a few feet before he righted himself, coughing and heaving as his lungs greedily inhaled oxygen.

The blizzard continued around them, battering Aquilo like a rowboat on the ocean. He would occasionally manage to regain his balance only to be buffeted again and have his wings crumple on him. Jack decided it was time to end this. Hopefully for the last time (but probably not).

Jack waved his staff towards Aquilo, and then followed through towards the ground. The storm immediately responded. It halted its almost directionless tizzy and surged towards the older spirit like a torpedo of shrapnel.

Even with his control over the North Wind, Aquilo couldn't fight against it. He barely had time to cry out before he was slammed by a wall of ice, tearing at his toga and shredding his wings. As soon as Aquilo crash landed, Jack dissipated the storm.

The witnesses looked like they'd witnessed too much. Their hair was standing on end, frozen in place and decorated with hail. Lleu had lost his crown.

Amazingly, despite having lost most of his feathers, his toga torn in multiple places, and being covered in scratches, Aquilo was still standing. Just inside the boundary line (which was now buried under a few inches of snow and very hard to see).

Aquilo looked down at his feet, the boundary line, back to his feet, and then finally to Jack. And then he laughed, a deep, bellowing sound that grated against the sudden silence.

"That was your best play and you _still_ can't beat me!" he taunted. "Give up, Jack Frost. You cannot–"

A snowball whacked him right in the middle of his face and made him stumble backwards a step. Jack smirked at him as he wiped the excess away.

"You little brat, you–"

"I win," Jack interrupted.

"You _what?_ Do I look like I've given up?!"

"You didn't have to," Jack pointed at Aquilo's sandaled feet. The ex-god followed his gaze.

Half of one foot stuck out over the boundary line. His face reddened – with embarrassment or anger, Jack didn't know – and he looked seconds away from exploding.

"WOOO! SNOW CONE IS THE WINNER! ALL HAIL JACK FROST, KING OF ALL THINGS COLD AND WINTERY... EXCEPT ICE CREAM CAUSE I DIBS THAT AS PART OF SUMMER!" Lleu crowed, standing on the back of his half-buried throne and waving his arms around like the lunatic he was.

May and Ceres looked at him like he'd finally lost what was left of his brain.

Aquilo turned his seething glare on the summer seasonal as his sons came to make sure he was alright (physically). "You cheated!" he declared. "That little rat distracted me!"

"I didn't even ask him to come," Jack pointed out. "And you weren't distracted just now."

"Besides," Ceres, surprisingly, added, "you're 'a god' aren't you? A little distraction like _him_ ," he nodded in Lleu's direction, "should be nothing more than a fly to you."

"Did you just call me a fly?" Lleu grimaced.

"There are five witnesses here who would say that Jack Frost won," May said, looking at Zetes and Calais and daring them to deny it. "You've lost, Aquilo. We're done here."

"Someone lift Jack onto their shoulders for me," Lleu started walking away, gesturing for the others to follow.

"Not happening," Ceres grumbled, storming ahead.

"It's really not necessary," Jack intervened before May could say anything. "Now if you'll excuse me I want to go have some fun."

"Good, cause we have to go celebrate," Lleu announced. "I'm thinking a massive ice cream cake. Made completely of ice cream. But first help me find my crown." He started kicking at the snow, looking for a speck of purple under all the white. The girls didn't even bother to stop.

Jack rolled his eyes and half-heartedly scanned the area, pretending he didn't hear the angry shouts of Aquilo in the distance. He had a bad feeling this wasn't the last he'd see of the older spirit.


	95. Jack Frost Festival

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay! I'm staying with my mum and co. over December, which means I've been forced to socialise and haven't had much writing time. Also, for those of you I've PMed about your requests, if you could get back to me, that'd be great - I can't write your requests until you do, which means I'll be temporarily skipping them.
> 
> This one is very drabble-y (sorry, I didn't know what else to write ^^;) and is a prompt from the wonderful earth star.
> 
> Disclaimed.

He couldn't believe it. Jack Frost finally, after over three hundred years, had his own holiday.

Okay, so maybe a festival on Prince Edward Island didn't count as a 'holiday', but it was damn near close enough and if anyone said otherwise he would... throw snow at them or something.

As Jack hovered above the Event Grounds, he mentally cancelled any and all plans he'd previously made for the day; which was just as well, because he'd forgotten what they were as soon as he'd spotted the winter wonderland below. They had ice slides. And dinosaur and dragon sculptures. And ice skating, and buskers, and–

His train of thought was thoroughly derailed when he noticed several kids waving at him. _The kids could see him_. As if this day hadn't already been good enough. Not waiting a second longer, Jack swooped down and perched on an ice sculpture of a T-Rex, grinning from ear to ear.

"It's Jack Frost!" one kid cried in excitement.

"Are you sure?" a girl next to him asked, glancing back at a picture of a snowflake with a face on a nearby banner. Probably the mascot for the festival, Jack mused. This wouldn't do.

"What do you mean 'are you sure'?" he asked with false indignity. "Of course I'm Jack Frost!" He waved his staff through the air, creating a light snowfall to prove his point.

The kids gasped in awe at the display, turning to each other with amazed expressions. It didn't take long after that for Jack to be dragged into all manner of games, from snowball fights, to races down the ice slides, to showing off in the ice skating rink (which Jack was pleased to note was not just a frozen lake – no risk of anyone falling in at all). He never wanted to leave.

Neither did the kids, it seemed. When it neared the end of the day and the festival started to close for the night, their parents had to literally drag some of them away. The only way Jack could placate them was to promise to come play with them again the next day. Those that weren't coming back to the festival he would just have to go visit himself.

As he made himself comfortable, stretched out between the plates on a snow stegosaurus' back, Jack added this new number of kids to his mental tally. That had to be at least 220 now, he thought smugly. When the festival was over he was definitely going to go brag to someone. Probably Bunny. Maybe he'd rub in his personal, educated opinion that the Jack Frost festival was better than Easter.

Jack sighed contentedly, giving the moon above one last glance before shutting his eyes. He could definitely get used to this, he decided.


	96. Power Hungry Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Jack Frost Day, everyone! I rushed to get something done for the occasion, which is why it's only the first half of what turned out to be an arc ^^; Also, in case I get too busy over the next week and am not able to get out a Christmas chapter, Merry Christmas!
> 
> I hope you enjoy your request, half-crazy; I've certainly been looking forward to writing it :P
> 
> Disclaimed

The first few weeks of winter were always the best; well, in Jack's opinion, anyway. The way the oranges and browns of autumn faded and were promptly buried under a layer of white, and the excitement on the kids' faces when they realised it was snow season again never failed to bring a grin to his face.

Perched on the branch of one of the taller trees around his lake, Jack surveyed his most recent handy-work. Nobody would be falling through that ice in a hurry. He had also been sure to dump an extra few inches on the town itself so that the usual, boring school Monday turned into an awesome snow day Monday. No child would suffer boredom indoors when Jack Frost was around. Not if he had any say in it, anyway.

Jack paused in his musings at a rustle in the bushes nearby. It was probably just an animal or something, but it certainly wouldn't have been the first time the Burgess kids had tried (keyword: _tried_ ) to get the jump on him unawares. He usually caught them pretty quickly, especially if they had Sophie with them, but so far they hadn't given up.

He jumped nimbly down to the forest floor, straining his ears for any sign of booted feet crunching on snow or a muffled giggle (usually Sophie). All he could hear, though, was his own light footsteps and the wind blowing between the branches. Had he just imagined it? Or maybe it really was just an animal. A squirrel or something that had forgotten it was supposed to be hibernating.

 _Better safe than sorry_ , he mentally shrugged. There was no way he was going to let the kids get one-up on him because he was too lazy to check it out. He'd never live it down. And so, with near-silent steps, Jack crept ever-closer to the suspicious bush.

"Ha!" he cried, bringing his staff down in front of him as he leapt behind the plant. He blinked in surprise at what he saw, straightening to his full height. "Lleu?"

The summer spirit sat crouched behind the bush, looking a little sheepish that he'd been caught. The area directly around him was wet with melted snow. "Uh, hey?"

"What are you doing here? And why are you hiding behind a bush?"

"Ah... you know, just... thought I'd drop by? Yeah, let's go with that."

"O-kaaaay," Jack raised a brow, not really buying it. "And the bush?"

Lleu shrugged and pet the plant. "It's a nice bush."

Jack took a step back, allowing Lleu more space to get to his feet. The summer seasonal swiped at the water marks on his board-shorts as he stood.

"So, how's summer?" Jack asked when it was clear Lleu wasn't going to say anything.

"Good, yeah, nice and warm," Lleu replied. "Winter?"

"Cold and white," Jack looked pointedly at their surroundings. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Never better!"

Jack eyed him suspiciously. There was definitely something going on he wasn't aware of, but if Lleu didn't want to talk about it, he wouldn't press the issue.

"So, hey, this is your hometown, right?" Lleu asked suddenly.

"Yeah...?"

"Why don't you give me the grand tour?"

"Haven't you seen it in summer?"

"Yeah, but I want to see it in winter, too."

Jack shrugged, not finding any reason why he shouldn't. He waved vaguely around them, "This is the lake and the woods."

Lleu raised a brow. "Fascinating. You should get a career as a tour guide."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Come on, then, smarty pants. I'll show you the town." He turned his back and started trudging away.

A hand grasping his wrist stopped him, the burning contact making him cringe.

"Um, _ow!_ " he spun back around and tugged at his hand. "Mind letting go?!"

Lleu's grip tightened. "I have a better idea," he said, his mouth stretching into a sinister grin.

"Lleu, you're hurting me!"

"Don't worry, it won't hurt for long."

He'd never seen Lleu act like this before, and to say he was alarmed would be an understatement. Jack idly wondered if Pitch could sense his growing fear. With rising panic, he struck out with his staff, blasting Lleu with a face full of ice and causing the summer spirit to release his grip. Jack leapt backwards a fair distance, staff held in front of himself defensively.

The ice melted almost immediately, just as he'd expected it would, but the distraction had bought him some breathing room.

"What the hell?!" he snapped.

"Wow, ice against summer. Really?" Lleu mocked.

"What did you want me to do? Stand still so you could burn my hand off?"

"Not what I was going for but standing still would make this easier for both of us."

"Make _what_ easier?!"

Lleu only grinned. The way it contorted its face looked very out of place on the usually so carefree spirit.

Something was clearly wrong with him, and Jack had no intention of fighting. He was far from powerless, but against the embodiment of summer, he didn't stand much of a chance. He and the other seasonals were like the elements, each strong against one and weak against another. Summer was without a doubt his weakness.

"I'm not going to fight you, Lleu," Jack declared, taking another step back.

"Good. I wouldn't want this to have to get messy," Lleu replied. "But if I have to break something to make you obey then I will."

Yep, definitely not his normal self. He needed help. Maybe Mother Nature. Jack called on his wind to carry him away, immensely relieved at having it wrap itself around him.

"Uh-uh, not so fast!" Lleu laughed. Before Jack's eyes he started to change. His face warped and became more slender, his red hair becoming chestnut brown in patches. The end result was like someone had morphed Lleu and May Queen together into one being.

He barely had a second to register the change before vines sprung out of the ground, wrapping around his legs and dragging him back to the frozen earth. Jack squirmed against them, feeling them start to freeze in his panic, but by the time he'd made any real headway, Lleu/May was already upon him.

"You're not Lleu," he glared. "Who are you?"

"Ah, very clever," Not-Lleu/May cackled. "But, sadly, too late." They crouched down, placing one palm on Jack's chest. "Just hold still and this'll be over in a jiffy."

Jack forcefully broke a hand free, sending ice shards scattering around him, and grabbed their wrist as tightly as he could. It burnt his hand, but he was giving as good as he got; whoever they were, they were about to get the worst case of frostbite in history.

"You're making this harder than it needs to be," they sighed, features twisting again until all traces of May were gone. The heat pouring off them increased and Jack was forced to let go.

"What do you want?" he seethed.

"Only your powers."

Before Jack had a chance to respond, he was overcome with searing pain from the point of contact, and not just because of the higher body temperature. It was like the spirit was trying to suck out his core. Maybe they were. He bit down on his lip to keep from crying out; he refused to give them the satisfaction. He tasted blood in his mouth.

"What... what did you do to Lleu and May?!" he ground out, bringing his legs up and kicking outwards. He caught his assailant in the chest, knocking them back enough that he could break the last of the vines and get to his feet.

Not-Lleu/May lay still for a moment before barking out a laugh. "You have more fight in you than I gave you credit for," they said, amused, as they pushed themself upright again. "But it won't save you. You're only delaying the inevitable!"

"Answer the question!" Jack demanded. They had said they wanted to take his powers. Did that mean...?

"From the look on your face, I think you've already figured it out!" they cackled. "That's right, little snowflake, your precious summer and spring spirits are no more!"

"No!" Jack struck out with his staff, sending shards of ice hurtling straight for the other being. It was a lie. It couldn't be true. He would not accept that.

Not-Lleu/May didn't even blink. Their features twisted again until white started coming through in their hair. With a single wave of their arm a strong wind knocked the shards off course and impaled them in a tree trunk.

Jack gaped. He'd only been pinned for a moment and already they had stolen some of his powers from him? But not all of them – there was only a little white hair. That was it. Did that mean they'd only been able to get a little bit of May's powers? Where was she? Was she okay?

And what did it mean for Lleu?

Not-Lleu/May's grin stretched wider, if it were possible. They opened their mouth to say something, perhaps taunt him further, but any possible words were cut off by a loud battle-cry and something falling from the sky directly on top of them. Both Not-Lleu/May and the thing from the sky crumpled to the ground.

"Ow, ow, ow," the thing, which turned out to be a person, rolled off his target, groaning. "That is so much more painful without magical powers."

"You're the one who insisted," Ceres rolled her eyes, landing off to the side with May at her side. The spring spirit had several black strands through her hair and all the flowers in her braid were dead. She looked like she hadn't slept in days.

"Yes, well, when one spends almost eight hundred years being able to fall from the sky and not bat an eye, they tend to _forget_ that human bodies are _weak_. I'm human now. I'm allowed to not be perfect," the guy countered, staggering to his feet and brushing his golden brown hair out of his eyes.

"So what was your excuse for before?" Ceres smirked.

"Didn't need one. I was flawless."

Jack slowly started putting two and two together. "Lleu?!"

The guy's attention snapped over to him and Jack felt a surge of relief. "Hey, Snow Cone! Or should I start calling you Oreo? Sorry we're late, by the way."

It was all a bit much for Jack to take in, really. So, in the end, he really couldn't be blamed for the highly intelligent, "Huh?" that escaped him.

"This is hardly the time," May snapped at them, eyes locked intently on the slowly rising figure of Jack's assailant.

"Judging from the fact that you're here, I'm going to take a guess and assume you know what's going on. In which case, would one of you mind explaining to me?" Jack called, never once taking his eyes off Not-Lleu/May.

"We'll explain later," May replied. "For now we need to get as far away from this thing as possible."

"Nuh-uh," Lleu shook his head, marching forwards. "I have a few bones to pick first."

"What are you intending to do without any powers?" Not-Lleu/May laughed, putting their hands on their hips as they took stock of the situation.

"I'll pommel you with my bare hands if I have to!"

"I'd like to see you try."

"Good, then it looks like we're both gonna get what we want!"

Jack snagged Lleu with the crook of his staff, pulling him back before he could do something he'd regret.

"Let me go, Jack!" Lleu staggered. "Don't you realise what that thing has done?! Not only did they get the jump on me, steal my powers, attack you and _May,_ who, by the way, wouldn't hurt a fly, but they made me human. _Human_! Do you know what this means?! It means I now have _mortal responsibilities._ I can't live like this! What if someone tries to make me make a phone call?! Or book an appointment? Or _both_?! I wasn't made for adult-ing, Jack."

" _Those_ are your priorities?!" Ceres stared.

"Well I'm _sorry_ if adulthood stresses me out, okay?!"

"Can we focus, please?" May stressed. "You can have your existential crisis when we're _not_ about to be attacked by a power-stealing spirit."

"Uh, does anyone know where the 'power-stealing spirit' went?" Jack hedged. At some point in their conversation the thing must've moved, because it was no longer where they'd last seen it.

"Thanks, Lleu, you distracted us with your breakdown and now we lost it!" Ceres grouched, turning her glare on the ex-summer spirit.

"Wow, guys, you're all so kind to me," Lleu deadpanned.

"Uh, guys, the spirit?" Jack tried to pull them back on track, glancing around warily and half-expecting to be attacked from behind at any moment. A warm breeze brushed against his face. Eyes widening, he grabbed Lleu by the arm, hauling him behind him, and sent ice careening upwards. "Watch out!"

The spirit, taken by surprise, was knocked back to the ground with a hiss.

"Holy Mother Nature your hands are _freezing_!" Lleu gasped, rubbing furiously where Jack had grabbed him. He was ignored.

Ceres held her arm out wide towards a willowy tree and swiped towards their assailant. Copying the action, the tree groaned and swayed as if in a gale, and whacked the spirit upside the head with enough force to knock them flat on their face.

"...Since when have you been able to do that?" Jack stared at her.

"Ex-goddess, Jack," was all she said.

"Emphasis on _ex_ ," the spirit snickered, pushing themself back up. Except for now being covered in snow, they didn't look any worse for wear.

Ceres growled, thrusting her hands forward in preparation for another attack. She never got the chance to see it through. The spirit sent a powerful monsoon-strength wind straight for her, sending her flying into the now thawed lake.

"Ceres!" May cried, immediately hurrying after her.

Jack spared the girls only a second's glance, sure they could take care of themselves, before leaping towards the spirit on a blast of icy wind. He would have to be careful not to make his attacks too powerful, else he accidentally hurt Lleu and the girls as well. The spirit sensed his hesitation and didn't make any move to dodge. When Jack was close enough, they grabbed his staff and swung him around until he was slammed into the ground.

"Shall we finish where we left off?" they grinned.

A second later they were tackled off him.

"Don't touch him!" Lleu barked, staggering upright before the spirit had a chance to recover.

"So you want to do this the hard way?" the spirit laughed. "Well then, don't say I didn't warn you. You could've lived out the rest of your days together as humans – all I was interested in was your powers – but now I'm not feeling all too benevolent."

The wind around them started picking up drastically, the force of it whipping at the four seasonals' hair and clothes, and melting every patch of snow around them. Jack threw his arms up to protect his face, but it did little against the scorching air. He could feel the charge building around them, the water evaporating. There would be a storm here in a matter of moments.

"Take cover!" he heard someone shout.

Something tugged on his arm. "Run!"

Jack obeyed without question, unable to properly open his eyes and not really sure which way he was heading. But at that moment it didn't matter; they just needed to get as far away as possible. It was becoming clearer that, equipped with all of Lleu's considerable power, they would be hard pressed to do anything more than delay the spirit. They needed to think and come up with a proper plan.

He could hear the spirit still laughing somewhere behind them.

He didn't look back.


	97. Pitch Scrooge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo! Just some quick, shameless self-advertising: if you've read Just For the Night and enjoyed it, please consider voting for it in Inkitt's Fandom 3 contest! You can find it here: http://www.inkitt.com/stories/51676
> 
> Okay, so, this did not go in any direction I was expecting it to... apologies ^^;
> 
> Merry (belated) Christmas, everyone!
> 
> I don't own RotG, A Christmas Carol, or The Grinch

It was that disgusting time of year again, when snow was falling in the north, and the south was heating up; when people cut down trees or bought fake ones, dragged them into their homes, and lit them up into spectacular fire hazards; when people were just so damn _jolly_ and _happy_ and everyone seemed to be having a _wonderful_ time.

Pitch Black loathed Christmas.

With such an irritating air of festivity suffocating the human world, he barely dared to leave his lair lest he catch whatever disease was going around and causing it. His only respite was preying on those insecure children, elevating their fears with some top quality, A-grade nightmares.

Could he really be blamed for it? No, he didn't think so. He was just doing his job, after all. But, unfortunately, the feeling was not mutual; why else would Jack Frost have encroached on his misery?

Jack appearing in his lair was becoming a common occurrence, and no matter how hard Pitch tried to keep him out, the winter spirit always managed to find a way in. It was a huge nuisance, and he was at something of a loss on how to solve the problem once and for all.

Fighting back the urge to decapitate the boy – he had a feeling Seraphina would notice if her beloved winter spirit lost his head (and he wanted to deal with her even less than he wanted to deal with Jack) – Pitch slammed his book shut and got to his feet just as Jack bounded into the room on a chilled breeze.

He forewent any sort of greeting, thinking his murderous expression spoke a thousand words.

"Hey there, Scrooge!" Jack grinned at him, apparently immune to Pitch's death glare.

"What do you want?" Pitch cut right to the chase.

"What, I can't just come visit my kinda-but-not-really-grandpa on Christmas?"

Pitch's lip curled at the title. Really, it was bad enough being lumped together with someone like Jack Frost, but did he have to use that title? Sure, he may have been around for a millennia or five, but something about the word 'grandpa' made him feel old.

"You of all people should know how I feel about holidays," he said.

Jack sighed in a way that might have been pity. Or possibly exasperation. "You're not going to turn into the Grinch and try to steal Christmas, are you?"

"Well, now that you mention it..."

Jack's smile dropped right off his face, replaced instead by wide doe eyes and a marvellous touch of fear. Then, slowly, understanding dawned and his rising panic gave way to shock. "Did you just make a joke?!"

Pitch turned away to hide his amusement at Jack's reaction. Ignoring the insinuation, he said, "Are you going to leave by yourself or am I going to have to have you removed again?"

"Come on, Pitch; it's Christmas! Where's all your holiday cheer?"

"I murdered it like I'm planning to do to you," he said simply.

The small jab of fear that exuded from Jack made dealing with him almost worthwhile. It always amused him to remind the boy what he was capable of, and just how far he'd be willing to go if he was pushed hard enough.

"You're no fun," Jack said at length.

Pitch turned to glance back at him over his shoulder. "You say that like I should be bothered by it."

"You _should_!"

"Why are you here, Frost?"

"Because you're my friend and nobody should be alone on Christmas."

Jack's response gave Pitch pause and he halted mid-preparation to have Jack swept from his lair. It was plain as day that his comment about being alone stretched well beyond the holiday season – it was a regular topic in their brief conversations – but that wasn't what his mind stuck on.

"We are not friends," he spat, spinning on his heel and levelling Jack with a powerful glare.

Jack just stared up at him, his eyes boring into him like he could somehow see right to Pitch's very soul. "Do you want to be?"

Pitch gave him the most deadpan expression he could muster. "What do you think?"

"I'd like to be friends," Jack was unperturbed. "I mean, I already consider us as being so but it'd be nice if the feeling was mutual."

"Why is it so hard for you to understand that we. Are. Not. Friends?! Nor are we related like you seem so keen on believing. The only thing we are is enemies, and yet you keep coming back here like a fly to the spider's parlour. Do you _want_ me to kill you? Because I'm becoming increasingly tempted to, Seraphina and her threats be damned!"

Jack blinked. "Wait, the only reason you've been restraining yourself is because Mom threatened you?" He looked genuinely hurt by the realisation.

Pitch, tired of dealing with the boy, waved his hand and Jack fell through the shadows. He would reappear somewhere in the woods outside, and with it being winter, there was no threat of him overheating like last time. "Let that be a lesson to you," he muttered darkly, knowing full well that it would probably take an actual sledgehammer to get anything through Jack's thick skull.

 

* * *

 

Jack sat up from where he'd been rudely tossed out of Pitch's lair. He was still in Burgess from the looks of things, under a tree near his lake. He sighed, wiping some excess snow from his hair as he stood.

He really thought he'd been making progress with Pitch. To find out it hadn't really been him all along... it was disheartening. He _knew_ he and Pitch were the same, with the exception of attitude, of course, and he knew he could get through to him.

Well, he'd thought he could, anyway. Maybe he'd been wrong. Maybe they were just too different.

Jack turned his gaze in the direction of Burgess. It was the day before Christmas Eve; the kids were probably with family, all hyped up for North's visit the next night. He called silently to the wind, and perched himself up in one of the higher branches.

It was still early afternoon, but as Jack looked skywards, he easily spotted the moon overhead. He still hadn't gotten over the Man in the Moon's treatment of him for the past three hundred years – part of him doubted he'd ever get the closure needed to heal that particular wound – but seeing that huge hunk of rock (which apparently wasn't actually a rock at all) had always brought him comfort, minimal though it may be.

"What do you think I should do?" he found himself asking.

As always, he received no reply.

He wished Emma was there; she'd always been better at this sort of thing. He was good at making people laugh, but she had had a knack for really _knowing_ people – reading them – especially as she'd grown older. He wished he'd known who she was, wished he'd paid more attention. Time was such a fickle thing.

The wind suddenly surged, changing direction and blowing Jack's hair into his face.

"Wha- hey!" he cried, trying to maintain his balance in the sudden onslaught.

The breeze picked up, literally tossing him skywards and throwing him around as it carried him away from the lake and towards the town, ignoring his many protests. When he was finally released, it was roughly, like his constant companion had forgotten everything they'd ever mastered about flying together.

Jack brushed himself off and sent a glare at the empty space around him, a glare that disappeared as soon as he realised where he was and, more specifically, what he had 'discovered'.

Jack shifted so he was no longer standing precariously on a pile of hard rubbish. A grin spread its way across his face. "Thanks, little lady."

 

* * *

 

It had been hours, and yet there had been not one sight of Jack Frost. Pitch was somehow simultaneously grateful for the peace and quiet and annoyed at himself for that small feeling of guilt in the back of his mind. Something about the crestfallen expression Jack had worn when he'd learned of Seraphina's meddling had stuck with him and refused to be shaken off.

What did he care how the winter brat was feeling? He didn't. So then why wouldn't it leave him alone? Any and all emotions Kozmotis Pitchiner had harboured – almost nonexistent though they were – should have died with him.

Pitch turned away from his absent surveying of the lights on the Globe to the Nightmare that had anxiously trotted up to him.

"What?" he snapped impatiently when it made no move to convey anything.

Hesitantly, it snorted out its news.

"What?" Pitch repeated, this time in disbelief. Without waiting for any sort of confirmation, he allowed the shadows to consume him, reappearing in the shade of a tree just outside the entrance of his lair. Even in the dying light of the day, he easily spotted just what it was his Nightmare had alerted him to.

A wrought iron bed frame, elaborately decorated in gothic style, was placed over the hole, some of the planks used to hold up a mattress removed to allow easy access. There was a small silver bow tied around one of the posts, a tag dangling just underneath it.

_I know you said you were tired of hiding under beds_ , it read, _but I found this and thought it suited you. If you don't like it, we can find you something else. Maybe a table or something for variety. Or a lamp; they put off lots of shadows._

_~~Merry Misery~~ _ _Scary Christmas!_

_Jack Frost._


	98. Power Hungry Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY! This should've been out WAY sooner but I got caught up in a stressful couple of weeks. Anyway, enough excuses. I swear this chapter was supposed to be serious. But Lleu wouldn't let me. I blame him. Also this is a longer arc than I was expecting, so there's going to be another part after this ^^;
> 
> But, hey, I managed to get 2SexyForMySkirt's request in, too :D
> 
> Disclaimed.

_That's it_ ; _I'm gonna die_ , Lleu thought, hunched over with his hands on his knees as he wheezed, trying to catch his breath. When he'd felt the storm system forming, he'd done what any sensible person would do and ran for his life. Unfortunately, he hadn't managed to get very far before his now mortal body had declared enough was enough. But he'd made it out of the woods, at least (literally speaking, anyway).

A voice in the back of his mind that sounded suspiciously like May Queen said, _Well, what did you expect when you spend all your time either flying around or lazing about?_

"Sh-shush, May," he said, earning himself several strange looks from passersby (if they hadn't already been staring at his less than seasonally appropriate attire).

Really, the situation couldn't get much worse; he was completely alone (which was thankful, if only because the other three would've slapped him for tempting the universe), dressed in a t-shirt, board shorts, and flip flops despite everything around him being covered in snow, the power-stealing whosit was still on the loose with _his_ powers, and to top everything off with a nice fat cherry, he was _human_.

Blegh. Responsibilities.

"Alright," Lleu said, slamming a fist into his palm, "if I d-don't want l-life as I know it to c-come to a m-miserable, dramatic e-end in which I h-have to p-partake in the endless c-cycle of 'n-need experience t-to get a j-job, need a j-job to get exp-perience'–" he shuddered "–then I s-seriously need to f-fix this."

He paused where he was. "F-First thing's f-first: figure out w-where the h-heck I am."

A woman was staring at him, holding her purse close to her side, as she scurried past him.

"Oh, hey," Lleu called out to her. "C-Could you t-tell me– or you c-could just run away. T-That works t-too."

He got the same result with several other randoms, and in the end came to the conclusion that he was on his own. He knew he was in Burgess – he and the girls had gone to the place they'd most likely find Jack – but _where_ in Burgess remained a mystery. Lleu supposed 'where' didn't really matter if he could find one of the others. But, of course, he had even less of an idea as to where they were than he did himself.

"I-Is this what b-being an adult is l-like?" he asked himself, trudging down the street and trying not to show how badly he was shivering. "T-Tromping around and p-pretending you know w-what you're doing? Because I d-don't like it. I w-want a r-refund."

He was getting more weird looks, not that he cared all that much anymore. Let them think the summery guy talking to himself was insane! They'd probably be right, come to think of it... Bah, details.

"Hey, mister, are you okay?"

Lleu looked up from his brooding to see a group of kids in front of him. They were all decked out in their winter gear (and he was totally _not_ jealous) and the brunet boy at the front had a sled tucked under one arm.

"N-Not really," Lleu admitted, hugging himself. "You w-wouldn't happen t-to have a s-spare coat, would you?"

"Here," the tallest kid in the group, a mean looking girl in a tutu, took off her thick pink coat and handed it to him.

"T-thanks," Lleu grinned, slipping it on without a second's hesitation. It was a bit short on him, with the sleeves ending almost at his elbow, but it was warm. It was a nice colour, too.

"What're you doing out in the snow dressed like that?" she asked, frowning.

"I got l-lost. I'm l-looking for my s-siblings."

"But why are you dressed like _that_?"

"I'm n-not from around h-here."

"It shows."

"You're looking for your siblings?" sled-kid interrupted. "What do they look like? Maybe we could help you look."

"Ah, I d-doubt that, kid," Lleu sighed. Jack and May might've had a more noticeable aura now, but they would still be about as visible as Ceres.

"Why?"

"L-let's just say they're the world ch-champions of hide and s-seek."

"It'll be faster if we help," one of what appeared to be a set of twins said.

_Heh. Not likely._

"We're looking for someone, too," the blonde boy with glasses shuffled nervously.

"Y-yeah? W-well, maybe I c-could help _y-you_ look," Lleu suggested.

"Maybe you'll find your siblings on the way," the girl in the beanie smiled.

"G-good thinking, 99." The kids obviously didn't get the reference but Lleu didn't mind. As they set off in the direction he had come from, he said, "I'm Lleu, by the way."

"I'm Jamie," sled-kid introduced. Then, pointing from one member of the group to the next, "This is Pippa, Monty, Cupcake, Caleb, and Claude."

"You n-name is C-Cupcake?" Lleu twisted his head to look at her.

"You got a problem with that?" Cupcake growled. She looked like she was getting ready to pound him into dust.

"N-nah, I was just t-thinking that's a p-pretty awesome n-name, actually."

Cupcake blinked, as if she hadn't been expecting that sort of response.

"So who're you g-guys looking for?"

"You might not be able to see him," Jamie shrugged. "He's better at hide and seek than your siblings."

Lleu raised a brow. "I highly doubt that." He paused as Jamie's words sunk in. _Might not be able to see him_. "Are you looking for a s-spirit?" Another thing clicked in his mind. "W-wait. Are you Jamie as in _the_ Jamie as in the golden child who remixed that video of P-Pitch?"

The kids stopped walking.

"How do you know about that?" Jamie frowned in suspicion at the same time the others asked 'what video?'.

Lleu couldn't help it. He laughed. "This is awesome! W-we're looking for the s-same person!"

"You're looking for Jack?"

"Yeah! Crazy right?"

"Hang on," Pippa held up her hands. "Jack's your brother?!"

"In all but blood," Lleu smirked. He stooped into a sweeping bow, "Spirit of summer, at your service."

" _You're_ the spirit of summer," Claude said sceptically, giving him a once-over.

"Well, I _was_ the spirit of summer but then some psycho, power-hungry whackadoodle stole my powers."

"'Psycho, power-hungry whackadoodle'?"

Lleu gestured for the kids to huddle closer. "Gather round, kiddies, for I have a tale..."

 

* * *

 

While the spirit thing (and man did they really need a proper name for it) had stolen some of his powers, it seemed to Jack that it hadn't taken his ability to fly. He had run for a little while before remembering _duh_ power of flight and took to the skies. It was far easier to gain your bearings when you had a bird's eye view of your surroundings.

Unfortunately, his high altitude didn't make it much easier to find the others. Jack wasn't sure who had dragged him away from the clearing, but as soon as they'd let go he'd lost them. Ceres could still fly, he knew (assuming her dunk in the lake hadn't done too much damage, which he doubted), and May could for short bursts, so they'd probably find him before he found them. As for Lleu, well... that was going to be harder.

It had only taken a single glimpse at his reflection in a store window to realise what Lleu had been talking about when he'd called him 'Oreo'. Like May, his hair was now streaked, though with brown instead of black. It was a concerning development.

Jack perched on the edge of a building and scanned his surroundings. There were plenty of people walking around, all dressed warmly for the season. From the looks of things, none of them had noticed the bizarre weather going on in the woods, but they surely would soon enough.

"It was the strangest thing," a woman's voice reached him. Jack looked down, easily spotting her below him, a mobile phone pressed to her ear as she gestured widely with her free hand. "He was hardly wearing anything, as if he'd expected to go outside and find it boiling! And talking to himself, too. Honestly, sometimes I worry about those young people. It's like they have no idea what they're doing with their lives."

Jack blinked. Well, that sounded like a description of Lleu if ever he heard one. He jumped down onto the sidewalk and started following the woman, but when it was clear he'd gain no further hints from her he turned around and headed the way she'd come. With any luck, he'd run into Lleu before the guy could give himself hypothermia.

"There you are!"

Jack looked up at the sudden, blissfully familiar voice in time to see May landing behind him.

"Ceres isn't with you?" he questioned. He was sure the two of them would have escaped together.

"I lost her in the woods."

"Was she okay?"

"Yes. I think her pride was bruised, more than anything."

Jack could understand that. "I take it you haven't found Lleu, then?"

"No," May started weaving through the streets alongside him. "You're the first."

"Well, let's not split up again. I heard someone mention having seen him, so I'm hoping if I retrace her steps I'll run into him."

May nodded. "Let's hope we find him before our adversary does."

"Or Ceres."

"Or Ceres."

 

* * *

 

"And that, boys and girls, is why we don't tick of the fire spirits," Lleu concluded.

The group of kids huddled around him exchanged wide-eyed expressions of amusement and an appropriate level of horror.

"Too bad you're no good at following your own advice," a woman's voice snapped.

Lleu stopped dead in his tracks and spun around, causing Pippa, who had been behind him, to crash into him. "Ceres!" he cried in relief, arms wide as he made to throw himself on her.

Ceres nimbly stepped aside, sending Lleu staggering a few paces.

"Ceres?" Cupcake frowned.

"Yes, Ceres, you hapless mortal," Ceres snapped. Sadly, Cupcake was oblivious to her presence. She rounded on Lleu, looking him up and down and sneering at his borrowed coat, "And as for you..."

Lleu cringed. "Please don't hit me."

"Why would we hit you?" Jamie asked.

"I'm not going to hit you," Ceres rolled her eyes. Lleu wasn't sure but he thought he might've heard something along the lines of 'but sometimes I want to' muttered under her breath. He quickly dismissed it as his imagination though, because he was a perfectly lovable guy and no one in their right mind would want to hit him.

"Where are the others?" he tried to see past her, as if expecting Jack and May to appear out of nowhere.

"I don't know, obviously, or I'd be there instead of here."

"You're so kind to me."

"Who're you talking to?" Caleb cut in.

"Oh, right," Lleu smiled sheepishly. "Kids, I'd like to introduce you to my older sister-in-all-but-blood and spirit of autumn, Ceres," he waved to where she was standing.

Ceres crossed her arms and turned her eyes to the heavens as if sending a prayer for strength. She was a Pagan goddess, though, and so probably wouldn't have been praying to a Christian deity. But you get the idea.

The kids were confused, obviously seeing nothing but empty air, until Lleu nudged them and said, "You have to _believe_. Like you do with Jack." It took barely seconds after that before they were openly gaping at the older spirit.

Ceres glanced at them before turning away again.

"Whoa," they breathed.

Ceres' gaze snapped back so fast she probably gave herself a concussion. "They can see me?" she muttered.

"Wait, are you Ceres, as in _goddess_ Ceres?" Pippa asked, eyes alighting with recognition.

Ceres preened at the girl's amazement. "Why, yes, I am," she replied, puffing out her chest and running a hand through her hair. "How very educated you are."

"Ex-goddess," Lleu corrected. "Don't fuel her ego."

Ceres glared at him.

"So what about the spring seasonal spirit?" Monty hedged.

"That's May. You'll get to meet her when we can find her," Lleu informed him. "And, of course, you already know our baby brother."

"Wait, _baby_ brother?" Cupcake raised a brow. "Jack's, like, three hundred or something."

"Yes, well, Ceres here is over two thousand, I'm eight hundred and something – I forget – and May's about six hundred. But even without that, we're still physically older than him, too. After Jack, May's the youngest based on physical appearance and she's, like, seventeen or eighteen."

"Seventeen," Ceres corrected.

The kids looked like the information had blown their minds.

"So, yup, baby brother," Lleu laughed.

Thunder cracked in the distance. All eyes snapped in the direction it had come from – the woods.

"That's not good," Lleu muttered, sharing a look with Ceres.

"It'll be even less good if we're still separated when it comes for us," she replied.

"That's the psycho, power-hungry whackadoodle, isn't it?" Jamie asked gravely. Ceres stared at him like he was insane.

"'fraid so," Lleu sighed.

"So what do we do?"

" _We_ do nothing. I'm pretty sure Jack would kill me if I let you guys get involved. You guys should just head home or something."

"We helped beat the Boogieman," Jamie pointed out.

"And that was super awesome but this thing isn't Pitch."

"All it wants is your powers, right? It has no reason to attack us."

"Did you twist the story so it was G-rated?" Ceres deadpanned.

Lleu winced. "Maybe?"

"Listen up, brats," Ceres said. "This thing doesn't just want our powers. It wants to kill us. It's already _tried_ to kill us, and it's far too powerful for us to defeat. Kids like you would be obliterated before you could blink. Heck, it's bad enough we're letting _Lleu_ help, given his current state."

Lleu pouted.

"Oh suck it up, you big baby."

"So what are _you_ guys planning on doing, then?" Cupcake crossed her arms.

"Yeah," Lleu turned to Ceres. "What _are_ we gonna do?"

"Why are you asking me?" Ceres huffed.

"Well, you're the oldest. Shouldn't that also make you the wisest? And didn't you deal with things like Titans and giants? Shouldn't a psycho, power-hungry whackadoodle be a piece of cake for you?"

"You may have forgotten this since you pointed it out two minutes ago, but I'm an _ex_ -goddess. I'm nowhere near as powerful as I used to be. And never did I do such things alone. There were other gods and goddesses involved, not to mention more than one demigod. _You_ are neither of those. You're no longer even a spirit."

"Wow, she really doesn't sugar-coat things at all, does she?" Pippa whispered.

"You don't know the half of it," Lleu grunted.

"Well, if you can't stop it alone, then we'd better find Jack and May quickly," Jamie piped up. "Four heads are better than two, right? Or ten heads are better than eight if you count all of us."

"He has a point," Cupcake shrugged.

"Ugh. Fine," Ceres spat, marching forwards a few steps before taking to the air. "I'll be the eyes in the sky. You'd all better keep up!"

'Keeping up' turned out to require a fair amount of running. Lleu's mortal body was not impressed.

 

* * *

 

"Did you hear that?" May turned in the direction of the woods, where dark clouds had gathered.

"Sounds like that storm's finally developed," Jack replied, following her gaze. "It'll probably head towards the town soon. Hopefully people will have enough sense to stay indoors."

"We should keep going. It won't be long before that thing comes for us. I doubt it would give up so easily."

"Yeah. How're you holding up?"

"A little tired, but I'm fine," May held out her hand. "Shall we?"

Jack grasped her hand and together they stepped off the roof they were standing on. It felt like they'd been all over Burgess but they'd yet to catch even a glimpse of the older two seasonals. How hard could it be to find a guy in shorts and a haughty autumn spirit? Apparently very.

"It's too bad we can't just ask someone if they've seen them," Jack sighed as the two of them perched on the statue in the park.

"The one down side of being a spirit, I suppose," May agreed.

"There's more than one downside, but let's not get into that."

May cast him a long look but didn't comment.

Thunder boomed again, closer this time. If Jack really concentrated, he thought he might've heard laughter in the distance. The sound made the hair on his neck stand on end.

"We need to lure it away from Burgess," Jack decided. There was no way he was going to let the town get destroyed.

"Where do you suggest we go? There's hardly any unpopulated areas nearby, except the woods," May replied.

"Then we go to the woods and try and keep it there."

"I hardly think it will follow us when Lleu is such an easy target."

Jack grinned at her. "Then maybe we shouldn't let it get a choice."

May sighed in obvious exasperation. "Sometimes I think you have a death wish."

Jack merely shrugged. "So, are you in?"

"If we die I'm blaming you."

"Is that a yes?"

"It's as close to a yes as you're going to get."

"I'll take it!"

The two of them launched themselves towards the oncoming storm system. It was even bigger up close, with electricity palpable in the air. They would have to be careful lest they become lightning rods.

Jack and May came to a halt midair a few hundred feet from the beginning of the mass. Neither of them would be able to dissipate the storm now that it had begun, but they were nature spirits; weakened though they were, they were far from powerless.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Jack shouted to her, struggling not to be drowned out by booming thunder.

"Unfortunately!" she called back.

"On the count of three!"

May grimaced and braced herself.

"One... two... three!"

The two seasonal spirits summoned the most powerful gale they could, frigid and warm winds mingling together into a single entity that pushed back at the humid air blowing towards them. Thunder and lightning cracked the sky at the collision of air currents.

At first, it seemed like all their efforts had done was make the storm worse, but slowly the system started moving back in the direction it had come from. It was working!

Something shot out of the darkness, slamming into May. She cried out in shock as she lost control of her already unstable flight pattern and plummeted out of the sky.

"May!" Jack called.

"Such a pity," a familiar voice said with mock sincerity.

Jack's attention snapped around. The power-stealing spirit hovered before him, a sinister grin plastered on its face, which was completely Lleu's. Jack growled in frustration and took off after May. The thing's laughter followed him down.

"And where do you think you're going, little snow spirit?" it cackled, hot on his tail.

Jack swerved and spiralled, desperately trying to put some distance between himself and his adversary. As long as it was using Lleu's powers, he was at a serious disadvantage.

May wasn't too far ahead; she was clearly trying to regain her flight, stopping and falling sporadically. Jack quickly rolled over, sending the largest blast of frost at his stalker he could before putting on a burst of speed.

"Is that the best you can do?!" the power-stealing spirit taunted.

The ground was close now. Too close. If he was going to catch up with May he wasn't going to be able to pull off a proper landing. But if he didn't catch up with her, she was going to be in for a painful reunion with the earth. There was no choice at all, really.

Jack reached out his free hand, managing to snag May by her flailing arm and pull her close. He twisted so his back was to the ground just a second before they crash landed via several branches.

"Jack!" May quickly pushed herself off him. "Oh my goodness, are you okay?! Why did you do that?!"

"Oooooow," Jack groaned. As it turned out, slamming into trees and the frozen earth was a painful thing to do. "Is it still coming?" he managed.

May glanced upwards. "I can't see it."

"Aw, are you looking for me?"

Jack craned his head back as far as he could. The power-stealing spirit was steadily making its way towards them, looking like it was enjoying itself immensely.

"May, run," he whispered.

"I'm not leaving you," she replied, just as quietly. "Can you get up?"

"Uh, yeah, I think so."

"No, no," the spirit tutted, slamming them with a wall of hot air that sent them both tumbling. "No conspiring."

Jack, now on his stomach, pushed himself up onto his elbows. May was a short distance away, already back on her feet.

"Now, who would like to go first?"

"How about we take a raincheck?" Jack quipped, hauling himself upright. He belatedly realised he'd lost his grip on his staff. He spotted it quickly enough, but it was closer to May than it was to him.

"Sorry," the thing shrugged. "Limited time offer; no rainchecks."

"Well that's lousy. Maybe I'll just take my business elsewhere, then."

"It's a very client-specific setup; I doubt anyone else would take you."

"It's worth a shot, though, right? I have good credentials."

"Do you have references? Nobody wants to deal with someone without experience."

"Yes, I have references! ...They're probably not good ones, though."

"I rest my case."

May, who had been watching the exchange, stared at the two of them with wide eyes. "What are you doing?!" she mouthed at Jack.

In response, Jack's gaze darted to his staff and then back to her. Thankfully, she seemed to take the hint, her mouth forming a small 'o'. Slowly, she started sidling towards it, keeping her eyes trained on their adversary, who was still smiling smugly at Jack.

"What is this, a court of law?" Jack said, trying to keep the spirit distracted.

The spirit glanced around itself. "Looks like a forest to me."

God, it was even starting to sound like Lleu.

"Now, can we get on with this, or do you want to employ another diversion tactic?" it raised a brow. "I wouldn't touch that stick if I were you, missy."

May froze, one hand hovering over Jack's staff. Her face set in determination and she hurriedly snatched it up and tossed it to Jack. Frost spread on the wood as soon as his hand made contact with it.

The spirit sighed, hung its head and shook it, as if Jack and May were two little kids that it was being forced to babysit. "Nobody ever listens."

Before it had the chance to act, Jack swung his staff in a wide arc, forming a make-shift ice wall between them and the spirit. "Run, May!" he yelled. "I'll be right behind you!"

May hesitated but eventually nodded and took off between the trees.

"How very noble of you," the power-stealing spirit said, literally melting a hole through his wall. "Sacrificing yourself to buy her some time."

Jack grit his teeth, staff held out defensively in a white-knuckled grip. He silently prayed May wouldn't come back.

"It's futile, though. You've realised this, haven't you?" the spirit continued. "After I deal with you, getting her powers and that witch Ceres' will be a piece of cake. You will all fall, in the end."

"Why're you doing this?" Jack demanded.

"Isn't it obvious? Power! Who would dare take me on with all the magic of the four head seasonals behind me? I could rule the world!"

"How cliché."

The spirit shrugged. "I've always had a thing for clichés."

"Yeah? What about the cliché where the bad guys always lose?"

"There's a first time for everything, right?" And with that, it launched itself at him.


	99. Power Hungry Part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up for a bit of violence in this one.
> 
> Hello again, all! Welcome to the last part of the Power Hungry arc. I hope you enjoy it :3
> 
> Disclaimed.

By the time May realised Jack was not, actually, 'right behind her', she was already too far away and too lost in the trees to quickly find her way back.

"Oh, you absolute idiot," she sighed, glaring off in the direction she'd come from. What was he thinking?! He was a _winter_ spirit! Going up against a villainous cur with all the powers of summer! Did he _want_ to die?! "You'd better be alright, Jack, or I'll kill you myself," she declared, hurriedly retracing her steps. She only hoped she'd make it in time.

She barely made it ten strides before something barrelled into her for the umpteenth time in so many hours. But instead of knocking her off her feet (like all the other times), this time she was squeezed within an inch of her life. _Great, I escaped having my powers stolen and murdered just to have all my insides come out through my throat instead._

Yeah. Not today. She was sick and tired of being pushed around.

May raised her legs as high as she could and kicked backwards. Her captor grunted at the unexpected attack and dropped her, allowing her to stagger back to her feet, spin to face them, and prepare for further conflict. Her defensive stance immediately dropped.

"Aaaaaaaaah," Lleu groaned, hunched over with his arms wrapped protectively around his stomach. "Whyyyyyyy?"

May stared at him, simultaneously furious and relieved. "You scared me!"

"Well, I'd say you got your revenge. My stomach will never be the same again."

"What are you doing here?"

"We saw you and Jack blow back the storm," a new voice answered, and May glanced up in time to see a small mob of children emerging through the trees. Ceres was right behind them.

What were children doing here? Why would Lleu and/or Ceres have agreed to allow them to get anywhere near the woods with such a danger so close? It didn't take a genius to figure these were the children that had helped the Guardians stop Pitch Black, and therefore Jack's believers, but that didn't make things any better. Pitch Black was one thing, but he was after the children's fear, not their lives. May doubted their current adversary would think twice about ending the lot of them once and for all.

And then another thing occurred to her.

Almost hesitantly, she took a large step to the right. The children's eyes followed her. She moved back to her original position. Once again the children tracked the movement.

"They can see me," she whispered, overcome with an emotion she couldn't recognise. Perhaps it was unbridled joy? But surely not; she'd gone over six hundred years without caring whether or not mortals could see her – she had plenty of immortal friends, after all. So what was it then?

"You okay?" Lleu was watching her, his expression calculating.

May turned to face him, forcing her attention away from the six little faces staring up at her. "Yes."

"You sure? You look a little pale."

She filed this information and her unidentified emotion away for later analysis. "Yes, I'm sure. We don't have time for chit chat. Jack needs us."

"Where is he?" the apparent leader of the children asked. His brow was furrowed in concern.

"Back with the spirit."

"You left him to fight that thing alone?!" Ceres gaped.

"Of course not!" May turned on her heel and continued with her initial trajectory. The others quickly hurried after her. "He told me he would be right behind me."

"So he lied."

"Did not!"

They all stopped in their tracks as Jack suddenly burst through the trees. He was a tad dishevelled and there were a few twigs in his hair, but overall he seemed perfectly fine. His grin was both sheepish and proud, but his expression grew quizzical when he spotted the children. Before he or anyone else had the chance to comment, Lleu swept him up in to a bone-crushing hug, much like May had been, except this time he had the decency to shout 'Oreo' by way of warning. Nevertheless, Jack looked like he did not appreciate the intrusion on his personal space.

"What about the spirit? What happened?" Ceres demanded.

Jack shrugged Lleu off him. "I managed to get in a lucky shot. It should be down for a little while. Long enough to let us come up with a better plan than 'attack' and 'run away', anyway." He glanced nervously over his shoulder. "We should put some distance between us, just to be on the safe side."

"Good plan," Lleu grinned, slapping him playfully on the back. "And on the way I can regale you with how I stole your believers from you."

Jack raised a brow but allowed himself to be ushered off. The kids followed, a million questions on their lips. May and Ceres took up the rear.

 

* * *

 

Jack wanted to die, which was kind of ironic given that was pretty much exactly what he was doing. He was on his hands and knees in the snow, trying to ignore the way the cold made his exposed skin ache, as he coughed up yet more water. He wiped the few dribbles that dripped down his chin on his sleeve and looked, disorientated, in the direction the spirit had gone.

Of course he hadn't won in a one-on-one battle. What had he been thinking? Winter against summer had bad odds for him even on the best of days. Against someone as ruthless as that particular spirit he didn't stand a chance. But he'd needed to give May a chance. He refused to let what happened to Lleu happen to her. Or worse.

Hence why he was here now, coughing up half the lake. Indisputably human.

After he'd found out just what, exactly, was going on, Jack had idly wondered what would happen to him if his powers were to be stolen. He had died, after all. Part of him had considered the possibility that he would immediately return to being dead. He hadn't considered that he might drown and freeze all over again. At least this time he wasn't sinking in the lake.

His coughing continued and he brought up even more water. Where was it coming from? His lungs? When he'd become Jack Frost, had all that water he'd taken in as a human just frozen and stayed there? But he didn't remember having any difficulty breathing as a spirit.

Jack looked up at the sky, hoping maybe the moon would be there to give him answers, but the sky was still darkened by storm clouds. Manny was nowhere in sight. The still-bitter part of him doubted he would answer even if he'd been in plain sight.

But now was not the time for brooding. The spirit had stolen his powers, disguised itself as him, stolen his staff, and gone after the other seasonals. He had to do something.

Jack gathered all the strength he could and pushed himself to his feet. The elevation made him woozy but he pressed on, staggering like a drunkard in the direction he'd seen May run, and hugging himself against the cold. He would have snorted at the irony of a winter spirit being cold if he hadn't been in the process of bringing up yet _more_ water (seriously, how much was in there?!) and struggling to catch his breath.

The fifteenth time he stumbled and had to lean against a tree to stop himself falling over, Jack realised he needed help. By the time he found the others either he would have keeled over and died or they would have. The former was undesirable. The latter was unacceptable.

An idea came to him. It was a pretty good idea, actually, though Jack doubted he'd be able to pull it off, especially without the wind on his side, but it was better than what he was currently doing, so Jack placed his thumb and forefinger into his mouth and blew. The sound he produced was more of a sad wheeze than the whistle he'd been going for and the effort of trying made him hunch over and choke some more. There wasn't a chance Frostwind had heard that. He waited for the fit to pass, took several deep breaths, and tried again.

The results were much the same, and this time Jack couldn't remain standing. His now numb hands and feet barely managed to support him as he heaved. _Geez, did I swallow the whole lake or something?_ he mused, staring at the puddle he'd created. It would probably freeze in a few minutes.

He was scared, Jack realised. He was scared of dying again, alone this time, without even the moon's presence for comfort. He was scared for his seasonal siblings, that the spirit would find them, trick them, and then kill them. He was scared for the Burgess kids and what it would mean for them if the spirit gained all their powers; he still didn't know what the thing really wanted beyond 'rule the world', but he'd seen enough movies to know that a plan like that never ended well for regular people.

How long would it take, he wondered, before the Guardians found out what had happened? Would they try to avenge him? He hoped not. He would hate for them to share his fate.

An animalistic snort echoed in the silence of the woods. Jack's head shot up. He easily spotted the lone Nightmare watching him from the shadows a short distance away.

"P-Pitch," he wheezed. "G-get P-" his half-formed sentence dissolved into another fit. His chest rattled sickeningly with each laboured breath. By the time he had the energy to look up again, the Nightmare had disappeared.

 

* * *

 

"Mother!"

Seraphina sipped at her tea as one of the sprites that helped upkeep her home burst into the room. "What is it?" she asked.

"There is a Nightmare in the meadow!"

The cup stilled in her hands before being slammed back onto its saucer. "There is one of Pitch Black's Nightmares _here_?" she demanded, already on her feet and sweeping through the doorway.

"Yes, Mother," the sprite struggled to keep up with her. "But so far it has not attacked."

Seraphina narrowed her eyes. With a wave of her hands the large wooden front doors burst open on a gust of wind.

There was indeed a Nightmare in the meadow, loitering on the edge of the forest and shifting with nervous tension. But she could come up with no explanation for its presence. If Pitch wished to see her, though this she greatly doubted, then there were more direct methods.

"State your business!" she ordered, gesturing for her sprite to fall back as she continued on to the horse alone.

The Nightmare whinnied loudly, twitching and dodging her as she approached. It was right to be nervous; the last time a Nightmare had dared to enter her home it had left one grain at a time.

But all thoughts of what she could do to this creature fled Seraphina's mind upon hearing its message. "What?" Her eyes narrowed, searching for any hint of deception. "Very well. You will carry me."

The Nightmare made a noise of protest and skirted away from her outstretched hand.

"You will carry me," Seraphina repeated, a hard edge to her tone, "or you will find yourself turned into a new glass sculpture for my garden."

The Nightmare stilled, head bowed.

"As I thought."

With the Nightmare complying, it was an easy enough matter to mount and disappear into the shadows, a call of parting to her nature spirits left in her wake.

 

* * *

 

As soon as her feet touched the snow of Burgess, Pennsylvania, the Nightmare bolted. Seraphina wasn't overly surprised. For beings of fear, they were remarkably easy to frighten. And speaking of fear...

"Jack!" Seraphina gasped, scrambling over to the small figure lying curled up in the snow. There was a puddle of semi-frozen water around his head and from the sound of his breathing she had a fairly good idea of where it had come from.

More concerning, though, was the blue tinge to his skin – far more deathly than she was accustomed to – and the fact that he was so obviously human.

At the sound of her voice, Jack's eyes cracked open. "Mom?" he croaked, trying and failing to push himself upright.

"Yes, it's me," Seraphina reassured him. "Try not to move." She placed one hand on his chest. "Take a deep breath, and then slowly breathe out."

On his exhalation, she guided the remaining water in his lungs up and out through his mouth. While he struggled to regain his breath, she turned the patch around them into a sanctuary of springtime, directing all the melted snow away. Vines grew at barely a touch and wove themselves into a makeshift blanket, which she gently wrapped around his shoulders. He leaned into her warmth.

"What did this to you?" Seraphina asked.

"W-was a... spirit thingy," Jack replied. "N-not sure w-what, exactly. S-stole L-leu's powers and m-mine. W-went after them."

Seraphina bit back her boiling rage. Jack did not deserve to be on the receiving end of her fury. "I want you to stay here. Keep warm and do not move until I return. Understand?"

Jack nodded mutely, wrapping himself further in the blanket until only the top of his head was visible.

"I shan't be long."

This so-called 'spirit thingy' was about to learn why it was unwise to mess with Mother Nature.

 

* * *

 

Jamie was officially confused. Since joining them, Jack had barely even glanced at him or the other Burgess kids, let alone asked what they were doing there or even telling them it was too dangerous and that they should go home. Instead, he was walking alongside Lleu, nodding with apparent interest as the ex-summer seasonal went on and on about how much being human sucked, how much he loved Jamie and the others, and how he wasn't going to 'give them back'.

They weren't even trying to come up with a plan; they were just sort of walking aimlessly through the woods in the opposite direction to where the psycho, power-stealing whackadoodle was. And from the looks of things, Jamie wasn't the only one feeling like something was wrong. All it took was a glance over his shoulder to see May Queen frowning at the back of Jack's head. Jamie slowed his pace until he was walking beside her.

"You see it to?" he asked her.

May glanced at him. "It's possible I'm imagining things, but something doesn't feel right to me. Lleu sees it to."

Jamie followed her gaze. From the excited way he was gesturing and smiling, it didn't seem like Lleu suspected anything was amiss.

As if sensing his confusion, May continued, "You see the way his shoulders are tense? He's preparing for fight or flight. Although, given that Jack is concerned in this, I think it would more likely be fight."

"Do you think we should just ask Jack what's wrong?"

May pursed her lips. She opened her mouth to respond but whatever she'd been about to say was cut off when Jack and Lleu suddenly stopped walking.

"This is probably far enough," Jack said, examining their surroundings.

"So now what? We plan?" Lleu asked. "I don't know what you've got in mind, but I hope it's good."

"Oh, don't worry, I know exactly what to do."

Jamie frowned. That sounded unnecessarily ominous. He realised exactly what was going on the second 'Jack' made his move.

True to what May had said, Lleu had been tensed and was prepared for the blow suddenly swung his way. It didn't matter either way, though, because Jamie threw his weight against 'Jack', knocking them both over before Lleu was in any real danger.

"You're the psycho, power-hungry whackadoodle!" Jamie declared, struggling to pin the squirming spirit beneath him. "Where's the real Jack?!"

The spirit stilled at the proclamation. "Whackadoodle?" it repeated in bafflement. After a moment it nodded in acceptance. "Well, I suppose you're not wrong."

Jamie's hands started to sting as the spirit's body temperature drastically lowered.

"Why don't you let go, kiddo?" the spirit said in a complete mockery of Jack's usual voice. "This isn't about you, but I won't hesitate to involve you if you don't back off."

"They're my friends, which makes it my business," Jamie snapped. It was unnerving that this thing had the same face as his favourite Guardian, but he reminded himself that it _wasn't_ Jack. "Where's Jack?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," the thing smiled savagely. A powerful gust of wind swept through the clearing and, coupled with a shove from the spirit, threw Jamie off.

"Jamie!" several voices cried.

Jamie hit the ground hard and rolled across the snow. _That's going to hurt in the morning,_ he groaned. He pushed himself up on his elbows and looked back at the scene. A full-on fight had broken out, with May and Ceres at the forefront, and Lleu scowling while trying to cover Jamie's friends. They were clearly doing their best, but the whackadoodle still had the advantage.

"What do we do?" Jamie murmured. What _could_ they do? He, his friends, and Lleu were humans, powerless, and very vulnerable. May and Ceres weren't, but the spirit had power of winter and summer. They wouldn't be able to hold out for long, no matter how optimistic Jamie pretended to be. "What do we do?"

"You have done enough," a woman's voice said quietly. A warm hand landed on his shoulder.

Jamie jumped at the unexpected arrival and lifted his head back as far as he could. A woman was crouched beside him, watching the scene playing out before them. She was beautiful, but very ethereal. Jamie had no doubt she was a spirit, and obviously one he believed in given that he could see her.

She smiled down at him. "Thank you for showing your concern for my nature spirits. Go to your friends and find some cover. I can't promise this will remain G-rated. Consider yourself warned." She retracted her hand and stepped boldly out towards the fight.

Jamie stared after her. ' _My_ nature spirits', she'd said. Did that mean she was...? Jamie scrambled back to his feet and hurried over to where his friends were, but kept an eye and an ear on the woman.

"May, Ceres, enough," she said.

The two seasonal spirits immediately halted their attack.

"Mother," May breathed, far more at ease than Jamie had seen her.

The whackadoodle likewise paused, a quizzical eyebrow raised. At the sight of it, the woman – Mother Nature, Jamie highly suspected – snarled.

"You dare to attack my spirits?!" she stormed forwards, her pretty face scrunched up in fury. "You dare steal their powers, distract them from their duties, leave them to die?!"

The whackadoodle was uneasy, but not scared. "Well this is unexpected," it said. "I didn't think I'd have to face you until after I'd dealt with these guys. Aren't you supposed to be a neutral party?"

Mother Nature raised her hand. The whackadoodle's eyes widened and it grabbed at its neck like it was being choked.

"I don't think you understand just who you're dealing with," Mother Nature said, her tone dark. "I am Mother Nature, commander and overseer of every natural thing on this planet. That includes the oxygen you breathe," she tossed her head and the ground beneath them began to shake, "and the earth you stand on. The seasonal spirits are my children, and your attack on them is very much an attack on me. If you thought for a moment that I would allow you to run unchecked, then you are in for a rude awakening."

The tremors stopped and the spirit dropped to the ground, apparently able to breathe again. It looked up at her with a vicious grin and laughed. "Ah, just as proud as they say, it seems."

Mother Nature raised a brow. "You seem to have a death wish. I'd be happy to help you achieve it."

"Aw, you wouldn't hurt little old Jacky, would you?" it pouted with Jack's face.

"Jack? No. You, on the other hand..."

Thunder rolled across the sky. Jamie noted the dark clouds were crawling towards them. Before anyone had time to think, lightning streaked down. The whackadoodle lit up like a Christmas tree.

It was over in a second, and when Jamie's vision cleared enough to see, the spirit was crumpled on the ground.

"Oh, you're not dead," Mother Nature rolled her eyes, kicking it with her foot to roll it onto its back. "I wouldn't let you off that easy. You'll be lucky if I let you off with all your limbs." She reached down and lifted it by its collar. "Now, you're going to give back every ounce of power you stole."

"Oh, am I?" the spirit croaked, face still split in amusement. "And what if I say no?"

Mother Nature pressed her free hand to the side of its face. The whackadoodle screamed. "That's what," she said monotonously. "Lleu, come here."

Lleu scampered over, his face devoid of its usual optimism.

"Do you want it to stop?" Mother asked pleasantly, increasing the pressure of her touch. "Then you will return Lleu's powers to him, and then May's and Jack's, too. Then it will stop."

"I could just let you kill me," it cackled. "Then none of your precious babies will get their powers back and poor little Jack will die. If he hasn't already, of course."

Lleu punched it with enough force to knock it out of Mother's grasp. "What did you do to Jack?!"

The thing only laughed harder.

"I think you might've knocked a few screws loose," Mother muttered.

"I think you're right," Lleu replied.

"I tire of this," she sighed.

"What're you gonna do?" the spirit asked, getting back to its feet and wiping a trickle of blood from the corner of its mouth. "Kill me? Torture me?" Jack's features had started to fade, mixed in with those that Jamie recognised as Lleu's, and some of May's.

"No." She turned to Ceres. "Ceres, take the children home. I will have Jack come see them once everything is the way it should be."

Ceres looked like she had a few choice words to say about that arrangement but swallowed her protests. Jamie reluctantly allowed himself to be led away. He doubted Mother Nature would let Jack die, but that didn't do much to ease his fears.

 

* * *

 

Jack knew there was a battle going on. It wasn't hard to figure out; there were shouts and bangs and tremors, all coming from the same direction. He only hoped Mother had enough sense not to destroy the whole town.

He was still cold, but the haven Mother had created was helping, and it was far easier to breathe when he wasn't coughing up a lung. His chest still ached, though, and he had a feeling he wasn't going to get out of this without some sort of illness. Assuming, that is, that he didn't get his powers back or that if he did get them back they didn't cancel out any sickness like last time (but last time he'd been dead, so he wasn't sure how well it carried across).

The sound of approaching footsteps caught his attention and he pulled his vine blanket down to free his head. Mother, May, and a still-human Lleu trudged towards him, all with grim expressions, and Mother dragging the unconscious form of the spirit that had stolen his powers behind her. Lleu visibly brightened at the sight of him and broke away from the group.

"You look cosy," he said, a small smile on his face as he noted Jack's surroundings.

"Wouldn't say cosy, but better than I was before," Jack returned.

"I'm glad you're alright. You know, I'm going to have to come up with another nickname now."

"Maybe not," Jack looked past him to Mother.

"We can't do this here," she told him. "Our mentally unstable friend here is refusing to cooperate. There are, however, several spirits that could easily just possess it and do the job for us. More than one of them owe me a favour."

Lleu helped Jack get to his feet and passed him his staff. "So where are we going?"

"Africa."

Jack groaned.

 

* * *

 

"And you're okay now?" Jamie asked, seated on the edge of his bed.

"Yeah, we're fine," Jack ruffled his hair. "No lasting damage."

"So what happened to the spirit?"

Lleu, perched on the windowsill, shrugged. "Can't say for sure; Mom was downright scary when we asked so we figured it would be safer just to let her deal with it." He jumped down into the room and started examining the posters on the walls. "Doubt we'll be seeing it again, though."

Jamie didn't know whether to feel relieved or unnerved. Mother Nature had been scary enough to him in that short moment he'd seen her; he couldn't imagine how scary she'd have to be to freak out Jack and Lleu. Maybe not knowing the answer was for the best.

"Anyway, I'd better head off before some whines about me 'neglecting my duties'," Lleu rolled his eyes. He trotted back to the window and leapt up. "See you in summer, kid," he waved. "Later, Snow Cone!"

"Snow Cone?" Jamie quirked a brow once the summer seasonal was gone.

"Honestly, I don't know," Jack shook his head fondly. "It's probably better to not ask questions and just roll with it when it comes to him."

"Yeah..."

"So, hey," Jack grinned at him, "how about that snow day?"


	100. Celebration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *In Xemnas' voice* Good tidings, friends. Today is a momentous day. I am pleased to announce that MTGBIS IS OFFICIALLY 2 YEARS OLD! Happy birthday to this monster of a fic! In addition to this, welcome to chapter 100! (For those of you who didn't check my profile page, can you see now why I waited to update?)
> 
> Yep, I decided it would be awesome to have chapter 100 coincide with the fic's birthday, so here we are! Thank you all for your patience. I'd like to take this time, too, to thank each and every one of you for your continued support - whether you're a silent reader or a reviewer. It means a lot to me, and this fic would be absolutely nothing without you guys. So thank you! And here's to many more chapters to come!
> 
> I do not own Rise of the Guardians, but I do own my heart and it is full to the brim of happiness :333

Jack rose before the sun, flying through Burgess with as much enthusiasm as ever. He was determined that this day would be a snow day; he would save the Burgess kids from that prison they called school and instead they could enjoy a complete Jack Frost style winter bonanza, including but not limited to snowball fights, sledding, building snowmen (or snowbunnies, in Sophie's case), and making snow angels. It was the perfect plan...

Except for one minor detail.

He couldn't find his favourite group of believers.

He'd spent hours decorating the town in a blanket of white, and as soon as he'd finished he'd gone off in search of them. But they were nowhere to be found. He'd checked everywhere he could think of, including the school on the off-chance the teachers were more demonic than he'd given them credit for and hadn't cancelled school at all. But despite his best efforts, his search was fruitless. It was like the kids had simply vanished.

Jack frowned, scanning the town laid out around him from the powerlines he was perched on. Had there been some sort of school camp or mass vacation he hadn't been made aware of? Surely not; there were other kids around that were the same age as Jamie and his friends, and Mrs Bennett and the other parents were still around.

So where had they gone?

Jack idly wondered if he should be worried, but no one else seemed particularly concerned about their disappearance. Maybe they'd taken a day trip somewhere and had just forgotten to let him know.

Well, if they had, it wasn't like he was going to be able to do anything about it now. With a disappointed shrug and a mental note to check back later and see if they'd turned up, Jack accepted that his perfect day had been ruined before it had even begun and took to the skies.

He wandered aimlessly for a while, starting light snowfalls here and there while he decided what he was going to do now. He was no longer in the mood for his usual shenanigans, but that didn't mean he was out of options. His mind drifted to the Tooth Palace. There were always fairies there taking a break that he was sure wouldn't mind if he lavished them with attention.

A smile worked its way onto Jack's face. Yes, that was a great idea. It took barely a thought to switch trajectory, and in no time at all he was well on his way to Punjam Hy Loo. The fairies weren't big fans of cold, but there were other games they could play (assuming they weren't too busy fangirling over his teeth).

It wasn't long before the mountainous cavern that contained the Palace appeared on the horizon, and Jack didn't hesitate at all to swoop in like he did every time he visited. As usual, there were fairies swarming left right and centre, coming and going in masses. For a moment, all Jack could do was stare at the organised chaos going on around him; he was used to seeing them busy, but not _this_ busy. Maybe it had been a sugary season or something.

Jack made his way up to the central spire to the platform Tooth preferred when she played her role as air-traffic control. It would be rude not to say hello. He didn't even make it halfway before the fairies finally took note of his presence, and a particularly large group cut off his path.

"Hey, girls," Jack grinned at them. A few swooned at the sight of his teeth. "Is Tooth home?"

He tried to get around them, but they quickly blocked his way again, shaking their little heads. They seemed almost... nervous.

"Is everything okay?"

They nodded fervently.

"Jack?!"

Jack tilted his head back to see the platform high above him. Tooth's head was peaking over the edge. "Hey, Tooth!"

"What are you doing here?" she asked, slightly flustered as she dropped down to join them.

"I thought I'd come say hi; maybe play with the fairies," he shrugged.

Tooth bit her lip, suddenly looking extremely apologetic. "I'm sorry, Jack. Now's not a good time. The girls and I are very busy... um... we have a lot to do." At Jack's crestfallen expression, she hastily added, "But you can come back later! Just a few hours is all I ask."

"No, no, it's fine," Jack reassured her. "I didn't mean to interrupt. I'll get out of your... uh, feathers."

"Again, I'm really sorry, Sweet Tooth."

"It's fine," Jack forced a smile, trying to ignore the hollow feeling in his chest. "I'll see you later!" He didn't stick around to wait for a response; he didn't want to delay her more than he already had.

Besides, it wasn't like it was just against him personally, right? They were really busy and he'd probably just get in the way. It just meant he'd have to find some other way to occupy his time. Bunny was probably bored being holed up alone between one Easter and the next. Maybe he'd give the poor over-grown rabbit something to do.

This, of course, meant he'd have to fly through summer, but if he stayed up high, it probably wouldn't be too bad.

 

* * *

 

He was within five minutes flying distance of the Warren when he nearly collided with a certain summer seasonal. Jack pulled up in a hurry, sure he would have skidded on air if it had been possible. Lleu, face betraying his shock, did much the same, throwing himself sideways slightly to avoid an unfortunate accident.

The two nature spirits stared at each other for a moment. Jack absently noted Lleu had a backpack slung across his back.

"Where's the fire?" Jack quirked a brow.

"Only in my heart, Snow Cone," Lleu professed, pressing a hand to his chest. He paused for a second, fidgeting with one of the bag's straps, then, "What're you doing so far south?" His tone sounded oddly nervous.

"I was going to go annoy Bunny."

"No!"

Jack started at the vehemence of Lleu's sudden vocal intervention.

"Uh, I mean... that's probably not a good idea," Lleu hastily back-tracked. "Bunny's probably busy with... rabbit things. Yeah. And it's quite hot in Australia! Cause... you know... summer, and... yeah. You should probably keep your distance. In fact, you should go back north and drop snow on people."

Jack wasn't sure how to react to that. He eyed the older spirit suspiciously, trying to figure out why he was acting so strangely. Lleu shifted under the scrutiny.

"Don't you have work to do?"

"Don't _you_?" Jack countered, more confused than anything.

Lleu's eyes widened as if he'd just remembered that, no, he couldn't just float above the ocean all day. "Ack! I'm late!" he took off northwards like a bat out of hell, a hasty "Stay out of summer! I'll see you later!" tossed carelessly over his shoulder.

Jack stared after him for a long moment. Lleu was a bit of a weirdo at the best of times, but that was strange, even for him. Eventually, he shrugged it off as one of the summer seasonal's quirks and continued on. He wasn't far from the Warren now. Besides, Lleu was overreacting.

Although, that didn't change the fact that he'd earned himself a thin sheen of sweat by the time he found and jumped down the tunnel entrance to Bunny's Warren.

Upon sliding to a halt in the meadow at the bottom, Jack was considerably surprised to find himself face-to-face with several egg sentinels, all with their angry faces on and stepping menacingly towards him.

"Oh, come on," Jack groaned. "Hasn't Bunny told you guys to lay-off yet?"

The golems, of course, didn't reply. Not that he'd expected them to. Jack flew the short distance to the top of a tree, just out of the golems' reach. Judging from the way they all turned and marched towards him, they _really_ didn't want him here. Hmm.

"Bunny, call off your eggs!" he shouted.

The tree shook beneath him as one of the sentinels slammed its weight into the trunk. Jack stared down at it in shock. Since when did 'defend the Warren from Jack' allow for destruction of plants? He tried to think back to anything heinous he might have done recently to deserve this sort of treatment but could come up with nothing. But, then, when had Bunny ever needed an excuse to be grouchy?

Jack jumped to a branch on a different tree when his current perch started creaking. The egg sentinels were quick to follow, hounding him as they continued their efforts to make him leave. But Jack was nothing if not persistent.

"Bunny!" he called again. You'd think with ears like his, Bunny would be able to hear him from a mile away. Unless this was selective hearing. That'd be just like the stupid overgrown rabbit.

"What're ya doin' here, Frostbite?!"

Jack's attention darted to the figure loping up behind his assailants. Bunny looked less than pleased to see him and made no attempt to call off his goons. "A little help, please?" Jack gestured largely at the eggs.

Bunny rolled his eyes but acquiesced, tapping a foot lightly on the ground. Immediately the eggs stopped trying to bulldoze him out of the tree, but they remained close and kept their angry expressions.

"Answer the question, kid," Bunny said.

"I just thought I'd drop in and say hi," Jack defended. "I wasn't expecting your welcome committee."

"I'm busy," Bunny snapped, turning away. "Come back later."

Jack swooped down, landing in front of him and blocking his exit. "What could you possibly be doing? Easter's not for months."

"None of ya business."

The egg golems turned and stalked menacingly towards them. Jack eyed them warily.

"Now shoo," Bunny continued, "before I have ya forcibly removed."

Jack frowned. He was used to being brushed off by Bunny, but it was usually in a pseudo-irritated manner and Jack had always been allowed to stay (so long as he behaved himself). He wasn't accustomed to the blatant hostility he was now on the receiving end of – well, not since before he'd become a Guardian, at least.

"Alright, I can take a hint," Jack raised his hands in a calming gesture. "Bye." He let the wind curl around him and together they shot off through one of Bunny's tunnels.

First Tooth, now Bunny... was something going on that he wasn't aware of? Frowning to himself, he switched trajectories and headed northwards. North had never brushed him off; even at his busiest time. If nothing else, he could lend the guy a hand by keeping the elves out of the way. It was a good plan.

* * *

_Someone is foiling my plans today,_ Jack concluded as he was caught and bodily hauled back out into the snow for the fifth time.

"Oh, come on, Phil!" he whined. "I thought we'd gotten past this!"

Phil scowled at him, wagging his finger in a reprimanding way.

"I _know_ North is busy," Jack rolled his eyes. In truth, he had no idea what the yeti was trying to say, but he gave it his best guess. "I promise I won't get in the way!"

Phil crossed his arms and shook his head.

"What if this was an emergency?"

Phil raised a brow, as if asking if it was, in fact, an emergency.

"Okay, it's not but what if it was? You can't just throw me out! I'm a Guardian!"

Phil retreated into the Workshop, shutting the door behind him with an air of finality.

Okay, so maybe he could just throw him out. Jack kicked at the snow in frustrated disappointment. He briefly contemplated looking for Sandy, but the little man was hard enough to find when you knew where to look. He could have been anywhere.

Jack paused. Why was he so upset about this? Yeah, it seemed like no one wanted anything to do with him today (for whatever reasons, he really didn't know), but so what? He'd gone three hundred years without anyone. He certainly didn't need them now.

He knew what the problem was: he was being greedy. He'd gotten a taste of what it was like to be one of them, to be seen, and now he was addicted. He couldn't get enough attention, enough social interaction. Well, enough was enough. He couldn't expect them to play along with his neediness all the time. Just because he enjoyed it, didn't mean they did.

"Come on, wind," he muttered. "We have work to do."

Jack sat in the snow on one of the peaks of the Himalayas. A snowstorm raged around him, though he wasn't sure if it was a result of his own turbulent emotions or because of the storm system he'd created on his way through. Either way, he didn't mind the way it formed a curtain around him, blocking out the world.

He sensed Frostwind's approach before he saw him. The ice dragon landed beside him and lovingly butted his head against Jack's shoulder.

"Hey, buddy," Jack smiled, petting him. "At least someone's glad to see me."

Frostwind plopped down onto the snow, wriggling a little to get comfortable before staring at Jack expectantly.

"What?"

Frostwind made a huffy sort of noise. It was far from a word, but the sentiment was clear enough.

"I'm fine," Jack reassured him. Frostwind wasn't buying it. Jack sighed, "Guess I just realised I'm too clingy."

Frostwind nudged him lovingly.

"I dunno," Jack stared out at the white surrounding them. "I'm probably over-thinking things. They're all really busy at the best of times."

He had no reason to be brooding. He was busy sometimes, too, even if his 'busy' was different from theirs. Determined not to let it get him down, Jack jumped to his feet. Frostwind copied him.

"But just because they're busy doesn't mean we can't do something fun, right?" he grinned down at his dragon. "What do you say? Wanna go teach some kids how to ski?"

Frostwind jumped in excitement, leaving claw marks in the snow as he ran around.

"I'll take that as a yes," Jack laughed. "Race you!"

He was off like a shot, but Frostwind was hot (err, cold?) on his tail. For a creature made entirely of ice, he could certainly move. But, then, Jack had the wind on his side. In the end, it was no real competition, but Frostwind got his revenge when, shortly after they'd landed on a ski slope in Canada, he knocked Jack onto a stray toboggan and sent him careening down the mountain.

Although, in Jack's opinion, it was far too fun to be considered revenge. And it reminded him of something, causing a new, far better idea to come to mind.

"Hey, Frostwind! Change of plans!"

 

* * *

 

It was to a torrent of excitement and squawking that Jack and Frostwind arrived in Antarctica. Jack's penguin colony raced over to them as fast as their little legs could carry them, all demanding his attention and refusing to take no for an answer. Frostwind, a little startled, backed off and watched from a distance.

"Yes, yes, hello," Jack chuckled, allowing himself to be smothered by penguin bodies. "How are things? You guys doing alright?"

A particularly chubby penguin forced its way forward.

"Ah, George, just the penguin I wanted to see," Jack grinned. "Report, General!"

George flapped his wings and released a string of sounds, the meaning of which was entirely lost on Jack. Nevertheless, he saluted the little guy and said, "Excellent, General. Keep up the good work."

Realising he was short one ice dragon, Jack scanned the immediate area until he spotted Frostwind camouflaged against the white of their surroundings. He waved the dragon over, but Frostwind refused to budge.

"Don't tell me you're scared of a few little penguins," Jack raised a brow, resolutely ignoring that, in this case, 'a few' was closer to a few hundred (which was admittedly small, all things considered) and that these 'little' penguins were almost as tall as Frostwind.

Frostwind glared as well as a dragon with ice for a face could at the insinuation but made no move to get closer.

"I promise they won't bite. Will you, guys?"

The penguins chirped. Jack hoped it was an affirmative.

Frostwind still didn't move.

"They're lots of fun," Jack enticed.

Still nothing.

"Fine," Jack crossed his arms and turned to his feathered friends. "Hey, guys." They all looked up at him. "I think Frostwind over there could use a hug, don't you think?"

Frostwind looked affronted and started trying to slink away. Jack was sure the birds hadn't a clue what he'd told them, but Frostwind had sealed his own fate; they took one look at the hastily retreating ice sculpture and charged.

"Make sure you don't break him!" Jack called after them, laughing as the penguins switched to sliding in order to catch up. He waited a moment before hurrying after them.

Frostwind had apparently forgotten he could fly, because Jack found him surrounded on all sides by curious penguins. The poor dragon looked traumatised.

"Oh, relax, you big baby," Jack chuckled, manoeuvring his way through the mass of bodies. "They just want to look at you." He stooped down to pick up one of the babies and held it up to Frostwind's face. "How can you say no to this face?"

The baby penguin, as if knowing exactly what Jack was doing, flapped its wings and chirped cutely.

It seemed that had been enough to melt Frostwind's icy heart, because within half an hour, the dragon had become the latest attraction, giving the penguins rides (both in the air and on the ground), racing them down slopes, and, much to Jack's amusement, starting to imitate the noises the birds made.

He was so caught up in playing with his avian family, Jack quickly forgot all about the events of that morning, and didn't even notice when Sandy floated silently onto the scene until the older spirit was literally right beside him.

"Sandy!" Jack gasped, startled. "You scared me."

Sandy smiled apologetically.

"What are you doing here?"

An image of a snowflake drifting to what was unmistakably North's Workshop appeared over Sandy's head.

"I've already been to the Workshop," Jack replied, returning his attention to where Frostwind was still playing with the penguins, both parties oblivious. "I got kicked out."

Sandy regained his attention with a light tap on the shoulder and made 'come' gestures.

"What for?"

More gestures were his only response.

"Fine," Jack sighed. "Hey! I'm going to head up to the Workshop. You guys can keep playing if you want."

Frostwind looked up, indicating that he understood. The penguins took advantage of the distraction and started hounding him. Jack shook his head in fond amusement.

"I'll see you guys later!" With that, he took to the air. "Alright, Sandy, lead the way."

 

* * *

 

The Workshop was dark when Jack and Sandy arrived. Unlike a few hours previously, there were no yetis to throw him out this time, and the two of them walked in through the front door unhindered. Jack gazed around, straining his eyes to see through the darkness and confused as to why all the lights were out in the first place. At least Sandy put off enough of a glow that they didn't get hopelessly lost in the dim.

"What's going on here?" Jack muttered as he followed Sandy into the Globe room. So far the place was deserted; there weren't even any elves running around.

Sandy stopped in the doorway, a suspicious smile on his face. Jack decided to ignore him for now, meandering further into the room. There had to be a light switch around somewhere.

As if on cue, the overhead lights flared to life, temporarily blinding Jack, who hadn't managed to bring his hand up in time to shield himself. This was promptly followed by a crowd of people jumping out of nowhere shouting 'surprise!' at the top of their lungs.

Needless to say, the whole experience was unexpected enough that Jack jumped a good few feet into the air and stayed there.

It took a moment for his racing heart to calm and for his eyes to adjust to the sudden change in lighting, but when it did, Jack finally got a good view of what was going on.

The Globe room had undergone a massive redecorating since last he'd visited. All the Christmas decorations were nowhere in sight, replaced instead by streamers, balloons, a professionally hand-painted banner hanging from the ceiling, a massive table holding a mountain of food, and an assortment of what appeared to be party games scattered about.

His gaze drifted to the room's occupants. Everyone was there: the Guardians, the Burgess kids (who Jack was relieved to note were completely fine), the seasonals, and even Mother Nature. In fact, the only one missing was Pitch Black, not that Jack was overly surprised by this.

After processing the scene for a while, Jack forced his tongue to move and asked, "What's the occasion?"

The assembled spirits and children looked at him with an expression that clearly told Jack that they thought he'd lost his mind.

"What?"

"Sweet Tooth, it's your birthday," Tooth hedged.

Jack frowned, "No it isn't."

"Yes it is," Jamie countered. He pulled a school diary out of his bag, marched over to Jack, flipped to today's date, and thrust it in his face. The date was circled several times in red marker with 'Jack's birthday' scrawled underneath it. "Same day as last year."

Jack blinked. Was that really the date? "Huh," he said. "I guess it is my birthday." It was weird to think he was now 302 years old (or 316 if he counted his time as a human).

"This is the part where you get really excited," Lleu stage whispered.

Jack turned to him, letting himself drift back to the floor as he finally properly processed just what was going on. They'd thrown a surprise party for him. They'd taken time out of their busy schedules and put in all this effort. For him. It certainly explained their earlier behaviour. They hadn't wanted him to find out. He was touched. But he also felt incredibly guilty.

"Thanks, you guys," he said, smiling. "This means a lot, but I don't really celebrate my birthday."

There were several shocked faces and indignant outcries of 'why not?!' at this.

Jack merely shrugged. He'd celebrated once, back when he'd first become a spirit, although at that point he'd considered them to be anniversaries more than anything. But the novelty had worn off after the first few years. All they did was remind him that, even though another year had passed, he was still alone, with no idea why he was there or what he was expected to do. Sure, now he had the answers to those questions and he was far from alone, but it wasn't easy to kick three hundred years' worth of negativity. "What's the point?"

"Have you ever had a birthday party before?" Cupcake asked.

"Uh, no." Not that he knew of, anyway.

Lleu nodded, as if he'd expected this response. "Okay, wait right here. I'll be right back, and then we're going to show you exactly what the point is."

Jack watched him march out of the room with mild unease. No one else looked the least bit concerned. In fact, they were all beaming at him. Jamie forcefully dragged him over to everyone, where he was promptly swept up into a bone-crushing hug by North while Sandy drifted over to a stereo and put on some music.

"I can't believe you've never had a birthday party!" Claude shook his head.

Upon being released, Jack barely had a second to catch his breath before Cupcake grabbed him and pinned a badge to his hoodie. It had 'I'm 3!' printed on it in bright pink letters, but someone had added a zero and a two after it in black marker so that it now read 'I'm 3 02!' Jack was too bemused to question it.

Lleu announced his return to the room in the form of a full-body slam into Jack's side. Thankfully, he'd disappeared to put on the heat-proof suit, which was padded. "Don't worry, Snow Cone," he said gravelly. "We'll rectify this ghastly detriment to your life. Starting with pin the tail on the donkey because that game is the best."

"Lleu, he's suffocating," May intervened. "And shouldn't Jack be the one to pick the first game? He _is_ the birthday boy."

Jack heaved great gulps of air as he was released, incredibly thankful for May's stating the obvious but too out of breath to say anything.

"May, May, May," Lleu shook his head. "How can you expect this poor, uneducated soul–" he accentuated his words by pulling Jack into a firm side-hug "–to pick a party game when he doesn't even know what party games _are_?"

Jack's protest that he _did_ know what party games were – he had himself witnessed several parties in the past – went ignored.

"Besides," Lleu continued, "there is no better game than pin the tail on the donkey."

"I beg to differ," Mother Nature cut in, tugging Jack free from the summer seasonal's grip to hug him herself. "I think you'll find Twister is far more enjoyable."

Lleu gaped at her and whispered, "I don't even know you anymore."

"We set up pin the tail over there," Pippa pointed to the far wall, where a large piece of paper with a texta-likeness of Bunny drawn on it hung. Jack suspected the kids had worked on it together, because he spotted several patches that had Sophie written all over them. "Sophie suggested pin the tail on the Bunny would be more appropriate."

The little girl in question squealed in excitement, chanting, "Bunny! Hop, hop, hop!"

Jack had to laugh, if not because of the idea, then because of the expression on Bunny's face. The poor rabbit couldn't say anything without hurting Sophie's feelings, though.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," Bunny grumbled. "But we'll see who laughs when we get to the mummy game."

"The... mummy game?" Jack echoed.

"We're gonna wrap you in toilet paper," Ceres grinned.

"But first pin the tail on the Bunny!" Lleu crowed, dragging Jack over. "Trust me, Snow Cone, you're gonna love it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so you have three choices: I can either do another chapter continuing this, or I can try my hand at drawing snapshots of the party instead, or I could just leave it as is and continue on with requests. Either way, you might have to wait a while (uni is in full swing and it's already bogging me down). So let me know if you have a preference :3


	101. Party Games

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay, guys.
> 
> I had a really fun time writing this one, and I hope you have just as much fun reading it!
> 
> Disclaimed

To his credit, Jack did _try_ not to laugh when he pulled off the blindfold to find he'd pinned the tail to Bunny's eye. It was more than he could say for Lleu, who'd had to walk over to the other side of the room so he wouldn't suffocate. Jack could still hear him trying (and failing spectacularly) to rein it in.

"Sorry, Bunny," Jack grinned, not sounding sorry at all.

Bunny, who had been wincing at the drawing in sympathy, glared at him and snatched the blindfold. "Let's hope you're better than he is," he said to Sophie, who was demanding that it be her turn next. If it hadn't been for the little girl's enthusiasm, Jack was sure Bunny would have torn down the drawing ages ago.

Sophie spun on the spot several times before staggering over in the general direction of the wall. She shoved the pin of the tail proudly into paper Bunny's foot. The real Bunny's eye twitched.

 

* * *

 

 

"Tooth, I saw you move!" Jamie grinned, pointing at the fairy in question.

Tooth sighed in resignation and, picking herself up off the floor, flew over to join the ever-increasing mob beside Jamie. "It was only a matter of time," she smiled at Jack – one of the first who had gotten out. Moon knew that boy had too much energy for his own good.

"To be honest, I'm impressed you lasted as long as you did," Jack laughed. "You're not normally still for very long."

The two of them glanced back over to where there were now only three figures lying on the rug, pretending to sleep: Monty, Sandy, and Mother Nature. Tooth hadn't known Sleeping Lions was actually a thing, but she found it was a good between-games game to help people unwind, even if she wasn't much good at it. Although, sparing a brief look at the swarm of party-goers on the sidelines, she wasn't the only one. She was surprised she hadn't been the first out, but, then, Bunny could hardly be blamed for his natural twitchiness.

"Monty, your hand moved!" Jamie called out.

Monty climbed to his feet with a sheepish smile and joined them, where he was promptly congratulated for staying in for so long.

"Who do you think will win?" Pippa asked, watching with rapt attention.

"Do you even need to ask?" Cupcake replied, just as Jamie said, "Sorry, Mother Nature, I saw that!"

At least no one could accuse Seraphina of being a sore-loser. She picked herself up and dusted herself off with a smug sort of smile. "Nature can only be reigned in for so long, I suppose," she said. "Looks like you win this round, Sandman."

Sandy didn't so much as twitch.

"Sandy?"

Nothing.

"Sandy! Wake up!"

 

* * *

 

"Left foot blue," May announced once the spinner had come to a stop. She watched with no small amount of amusement as those players still in groaned and awkwardly reached over each other.

Lleu draped himself over Mother Nature like a blanket in an effort to snag the last blue circle before Caleb could (and, really, it was amazing how well he was doing given how padded the suit was). The expression on Seraphina's face – mere centimetres away from Lleu's – was unreadable.

Lleu grinned at her. "Fancy seeing you here."

The returned smirk was slightly worrying.

May spun the arrow again. "Right hand yellow."

Seraphina twisted, expertly demonstrating her freakish flexibility in a single fluid movement that not only dislodged Lleu and sent him sprawling on his back (and rolling a little), but also won her the game when Caleb, dodging Lleu, slipped and slammed into Jack.

Standing tall over them all she asked, "How's the view from down there, boys?"

 

* * *

 

North shoved yet another marshmallow into his mouth and proudly declared, "I am chubby bubby." The words were only partially muffled, even though he was on number twelve.

"What even is the aim of this game?" Ceres sneered, watching Jack one-up North. The kid could barely close his mouth anymore, and Tooth, who had refused to play, looked like she was about to have an aneurism.

"To make a fool of yourself," Jamie informed her sagely, handing another marshmallow to Sophie. The girl had only managed about five or so, but was now instead happily eating them.

They all cracked up laughing when Lleu tried for number 13 and said, "I'mma bummy bummy." He surveyed them all with an air of indignity. "Mah mar moo warfm ma?" He turned to his left, where Bunny was seated, only to half spit, half choke at the sight that greeted him. It took several long minutes of coughing and Tooth petting his back before he could breathe again.

Bunny, cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk from all the marshmallows, crossed his arms and scowled.

 

* * *

 

Jack restrained a laugh as he watched the others running around below. Really, they obviously didn't know him very well if the first place they looked _wasn't_ up in the rafters.

As if inspired by that very thought, Jamie paused and tilted his head upwards. His smile was a touch exasperated as he gestured silently in a way that clearly said 'how the hell am I going to get up there?' Jack, deciding to spare him, lowered his staff crook-down, the range extended by a vine courtesy of May, who had found him within the first five minutes. Jamie quickly grabbed hold and allowed himself to be pulled up before any of the others still searching could notice.

Jamie sat himself on a free patch between Jack and May as everyone else scooted down a bit. Jack wasn't sure how much weight the rafter beam would hold, but so far it was managing alright, even with himself, May, Lleu, Pippa, Bunny, Sandy, Cupcake, and now Jamie perched on it like a flock of particularly large birds. An odd simile, given the game was called Sardines.

 

* * *

 

Jack tried not to squirm as his team tied off yet another roll of toilet paper before starting on the next. This was their last roll. If they could finish it before the other team (whose centrepiece was Claude), they would win.

"How're you feeling, Jack?" Cupcake asked him as his arms were pulled just that little bit tighter against his sides.

"A little tied up," Jack replied lightly.

"Hilarious," she rolled her eyes.

"I thought so."

The toilet roll passed from hand to hand as it worked its way around. They were almost there. They could do this! (Even if 'this' was the most ridiculous game Jack had ever participated in, he couldn't help the competitive air about it. That and he really didn't want to lose to Bunny.)

"YEAH!" his team shouted, throwing down their empty toilet roll and throwing their hands in the air in victory. Jack would have joined them, but, well, he really was a little tied up.

But even as the amusement at both his team's reaction and the other team's disappointment washed over him, he couldn't help but think this was an incredible waste of toilet paper.

"Now we race them!" Lleu declared with a remarkably sinister grin for someone who was usually so cheerful.

Jack looked at Claude, whose legs had been wrapped separately, and then down at his own legs. His very-well-wrapped-together legs. Damn.

 

* * *

 

"I am king," Lleu declared, holding up the marked stick that proved his statement true, "and as your king I decree that numbers two and eleven have to pretend they're married for the next five rounds."

Those with numbers that weren't two or eleven snickered.

Jack and Bunny looked horrified.

 

* * *

 

"Okay, what's next?" Jamie perused the list of party games they had made, Tooth and Pippa reading over his shoulders.

"Murder in the dark sounds good," Pippa suggested, pointing to where it was scrawled on the paper.

Jack's head shot up, attention pulled away from where May was helping him remove the last of the toilet paper. "Did you say murder?"

"Yep!" Jamie grinned, putting the list down on the snack table. "You ever played it before?"

But Jack wasn't paying attention anymore. The second he was free of his 'mummy wrappings' he snatched up his staff and shot off out the window, a hasty "I'll be right back!" as his only words of parting. The others watched him go with a great deal of confusion.

It wasn't long before he returned, but no one had expected him to emerge from the shadows in the corner of the Globe Room. And they definitely hadn't expected to see Pitch accompanying him.

The Boogieman stared at the scene he'd stumbled upon with obvious surprise for a moment before rounding on Jack, glaring. "I thought you said it was a matter of life or death!"

"It _is_ ," Jack protested. "It's _murder_. In the _dark_. I thought you'd want to join in."

"It is not dark in here and there are no corpses."

"Yet."

"Hey, gramps!" Lleu was the first to recover from the shock. "You come to join the party?"

"Do _not_ call me that!" Pitch snapped. "And no. I was just leaving."

"You're not even going to stay for some cake?" Jack asked.

Pitch glared at him.

"Let him leave," Bunny growled, muscles tense. "He'll only ruin everythin'."

"Funny," Jack 'hmm'd. "I recall you saying something like that about me once upon a time. Besides, it's my party, right? If I want him here, he can stay."

Bunny's jaw clamped shut.

"You came all the way here, you might as well stay for at least one game," Jack turned to Pitch.

Pitch's face contorted in a way that clearly showed how he was restraining himself from attacking either verbally or physically. Or both. (At least he was smart enough not to pick a fight in a room full of enemies – especially with Mother Nature present). "Fine," Pitch spat at length. "But only one. And then I'm leaving."

"Great!" Jack beamed. "So how do we play?"

Pitch seethed.

Jamie picked up a deck of cards, removing at least half of them before shuffling and passing them out. "Everybody gets a card – don't show anyone what it is – and the one who has the ace is the murderer and the one with the king is the police officer/detective." He gave them all a moment to see what their cards were before moving over to the light switch. "When I turn out the lights, the murderer has to go around and tap people on the shoulder. If you get tapped, you have to pretend to die. If you come across a 'dead' person, you shout 'murder in the dark' and the lights come back on. Then the police officer has to try and figure out who the murderer is. Okay, everybody ready?" At the collective affirmation, Jamie flicked the switch and the room plunged into darkness (Sandy had had to put on several layers of clothing to hide his natural glow).

There was the sound of shuffling feet (and the occasional grunt as someone walked into something) for several long moments before the murderer made their first move – notable from the rather dramatic sounds of asphyxiation on the other side of the room.

Jack's head whipped around towards the sound, but the darkness made him blind. If he had to take a guess, he would suspect the first victim to have been one of the twins.

"No, please, spare me! I'm too young and adorable to die-" the voice broke off into a terrible hacking noise, quickly followed by the loud thump of a body hitting the floor.

 _And there goes Lleu_ , Jack rolled his eyes. He wondered what would happen if he got murdered, seeing as he was technically dead already...

This went on for at least five minutes, with a few more 'deaths', before there was the sound of someone tripping and Tooth cried, "Murder in the dark!"

Jack wined as the lights flared overhead, blinking the after-image away as he surveyed the room. There were a total of five 'bodies' littered around the place: Caleb, Lleu, Pippa, North, and Mother Nature. He let his attention trail over to Pitch, who was leaning against the wall looking bored (though if Jack wasn't mistaken, he was at least slightly amused at the sight of the sprawled bodies on the floor).

"Alrigh', everyone gather round," Bunny called, holding up his king card. "As of right now you're all suspects."

Jack smiled at the brief mental image of Bunny in a deer-hunter hat and a Milford coat as he regrouped with the rest of the survivors. Bunny assessed them all critically, and if he maybe glared a little longer at Pitch (who had refused to budge) no one called him out on it. Then, abruptly, turning his back, he went to examine the 'bodies'.

Jack watched him in bemusement, sharing a look with Baby Tooth on his shoulder. He wasn't sure what Bunny expected to find. Fingerprints maybe?

Bunny stood to his full height and marched back over to them, a frown of concentration on his face. "Soph, Cupcake, Claude, Ceres, Monty," he said, pointing, "go stand over there. The rest of ya line up."

Everyone shuffled to do his bidding, except Pitch, who merely rolled his eyes. Jack grinned down at Jamie as they positioned themselves side-by-side.

"Who do you reckon it was?" he whispered.

Jamie shrugged. "Could be anyone."

"May, walk to the other side of the room," Bunny said, reclaiming their attention.

Brow raised in bewilderment, May did so. She hadn't even made it halfway before Bunny told her to go join the group off to the side.

"You gonna let us in on your thought process, Cottontail?" Jack asked. "I mean, I know not a lot goes on in that fluffy head of yours, but still."

"Ya might have forgotten, Frostbite, but these ears aren't just for decoration. I might not be able to see in the dark, but I can hear. May's footsteps are too even; the murderer was clumsier when they walked."

"And what about those guys?" Jack nodded to the group across from them.

"They were near me when the murders took place; too far away for it to have been them. Pitch Black," Bunny suddenly spun to face the Nightmare King. Pitch looked inquisitive in a bored sort of way. "It wasn't you."

Pitch looked as surprised as Jack felt. He'd thought for sure prejudice would cloud Bunny's judgment.

"How do you know?" Tooth enquired with a matching expression.

"Simple," Bunny started pacing along the line. "Like I said, the murderer walks clumsily. And if anythin' can be said about this ratbag," he gestured over at Pitch, "it's that his movements are as sure and fluid as the best dancer."

Jamie and Jack snickered at the memory of the video they'd made ages ago, the sound drowned out by a poorly contained snort coming from Lleu's corpse.

Ignoring them, Bunny continued, "And Pitch takes long strides, whereas the murderer's are relatively short and quick. Which means the person we're lookin' for is short." He stopped in front of Sandy, who stared up at him with wide eyes. Not taking his eyes off the short Guardian (who was still wrapped up in clothes), Bunny snapped, "Tooth."

Tooth flinched. "Yes?"

"You're under arrest," he smirked, turning to look at her.

Tooth somehow managed to express sheepishness and deviousness in a single smile. She held up her ace for them all to see.

"Wait, what?" Monty gaped. "But she was the one who cried murder!"

"A clever ploy," Bunny acknowledged, clearly amused, "designed to draw suspicion away from herself. Unfortunately for her, she gave herself away. The clumsiness comes from not being used to walkin', which means an alternate method of movement. It couldn't have been Frostbite, seeing as he's as sure footed as a mountain goat – not to mention too tall – and Jamie can't fly, which left Tooth or Sandy. But Sandy's as silent in movement as he is in everythin' else, and I could clearly hear the footsteps. It certainly helps that I could smell feathers on all of the bodies, especially when I recalled that Tooth hasn't come into physical contact with all of 'em since the party started. Until now, that is."

"Guilty as charged," Tooth grinned.

"Wow, Tooth," Jack chuckled. "I didn't know you had it in you!"

The dead resurrected themselves, coming over to join them, just as Pitch pushed himself off the wall. "Are we done here?" he asked.

"Nope," Lleu replied, popping the 'p'.

 

* * *

 

Seraphina worked the stereo as she watched those still 'in' traipse around a small circle of chairs. The ones who had been too slow in earlier rounds watched from the sidelines, cheering on the others. It never ceased to amaze her how such a seemingly mundane party game could get so... competitive.

She pressed pause on the music.

Immediately they scrambled to the four remaining chairs. Well, everyone except Pitch, who sneered at them. With the barest wave of his hand, one of the chairs sunk into the shadows and reappeared at his side, where he gracefully sank into it. Unfortunately for North, who had been about to claim that chair himself, this meant the poor man crashed heavily to the floor.

There were several bouts of laughter between the obvious concern, but North waved them off with a bellow of his own.

"Well played," North waved his finger at Pitch as he stretched and went to join the crowd on the sidelines. "Very cunning."

Pitch watched him go without the barest hint of an expression.

"Okay, no using your powers to cheat," Seraphina declared, starting the music again.

The next time she paused it, the scramble was much the same as before, this time with Pippa being the unlucky one, just a few seconds too late to claim the last chair. There were only two chairs left now, and three players – Pitch, Jack (and Baby Tooth, but seeing as how Jack was her chair, it didn't really count), and Sophie (no one had had the heart to not let her win).

Seraphina let the music play for far longer this time, watching in no small amount of amusement as Sophie giggled happily and Jack and Pitch got increasingly tenser. It was obvious to everyone (expect maybe Sophie) that it would be either the winter spirit or the Boogieman who would go out this round, and neither of them were going to go down without a fight.

The music stopped.

Sophie took her time to clamber up into one of the chairs.

Pitch claimed the other with smug satisfaction.

Jack hesitated for less than a second before sitting on Pitch, and Seraphina could only laugh at the expression on her father's face. She declared Jack out before Pitch had the chance to kill the poor boy.

 

* * *

 

"Everyone pair up for three-legged race!" North announced, then promptly. "We need someone to be judge."

"I'll do it," Seraphina volunteered.

"You were on music in the last game, though," Tooth protested.

"It's alright, I don't feel much like running, anyway," she smiled.

It didn't take long for pairs to be made: Claude and Caleb (to absolutely no one's surprise) were quick to grab a cloth to tie their legs together with, closely followed by May and Ceres, and Sophie with Tooth (the little girl was still besotted). Pippa and Monty were next, with Cupcake and Sandy right after them. North and Bunny had temporarily called a truce and teamed up, and both looked determined to win.

"Snow Cone," Lleu threw an arm around Jack's shoulders, "would you like to be my extra leg?"

Jack chuckled. "Normally I'd say yes, but I don't think it would be very Guardian-like of me to leave Jamie with Pitch," he nodded at the two of them. Jamie looked mildly uncomfortable and Pitch wasn't paying any attention to the events unfolding around him. He looked like he was trying to find an opportune moment to sneak off.

"Ah," Lleu nodded. With a murmur of 'good luck', he trotted over to Jamie. "Looks like you're with me, Golden Child." Jamie's relieved smile was definitely worth tying himself to Pitch for, Jack mused.

"So I guess it's you and me, huh?" he said, moving to stand beside the Boogieman, cloth in hand.

"If you honestly think I would lower myself so much as to participate in–"

"Blah blah blah," Jack cut him off. "I don't think it has anything to do with the race. I think you're just scared you'll lose."

" _Excuse_ me?!" Pitch glared down at him.

"I can't say I blame you," Jack continued, keeping his expression neutral. "I mean, it was humiliating enough to lose to the Guardians and a bunch of kids that one Easter, right? Imagine losing _again_ but in something as childish as a race."

Pitch growled, snatching the cloth from him and stooping to tie their legs together. Jack glanced over at Mother Nature, who had a proud, yet smug smile on her face as she watched them. He gave her a wink before schooling his features as Pitch stood up straight. With the Boogieman's murderous determination to earn bragging rights, there was no way they could lose.

And they didn't, much to Bunny and North's chagrin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, that was a shout-out to the _Bunnymund Holmes_ series here on AO3. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend that you do
> 
> Party games in order of appearance: Pin the Tail, Sleeping Lions, Twister, Chubby Bubby, Sardines, Mummy Wrap, King's Game, Murder in the Dark, Musical Chairs, and the Three-Legged Race


	102. Intervention

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, chapter 102, which was a request from Akeri la malicieuse. I hope you like it ^w^ (I'm not entirely satisfied with it, especially the ending, but I didn't really know how to fix it...)

Whenever Jack thought of North, the image that always came to mind was that of an optimistic, rambunctious older man with the soul of someone a fraction of his age, and who never failed to see wonder in anything. He was excitable and animated and 'stop' and 'rest' didn't seem to be in his vocabulary. It was in light of this that Jack was taken by such surprise when he and Sandy turned up at the Pole two days before Christmas.

The North they found in the Workshop wasn't rambunctious or excitable. He was hardly even animated. And far from seeing the wonder in things, he looked more like he was wondering how he hadn't fallen over yet. Jack certainly was. This North had bags under his eyes, sagging shoulders, and a demeanour that showed his mind was far away from the doll he was approving; all tell-tale signs of someone who clearly had not slept in far longer than was healthy.

"You were right," Jack said to his companion, staring at North with wide eyes. The man in question hadn't even noticed their arrival. "This is bad."

Sandy nodded in a pained sort of way.

"When was the last time he took a break?"

Sandy shrugged.

"I think an intervention is in order," Jack frowned, flitting over to perch on the edge of a workstation near where North was standing.

North started at his sudden appearance. "Jack! Is good to see you my friend!"

Jack didn't waste time exchanging pleasantries. "When was the last time you had a break, North? You look like you're about to keel over."

North heaved a sigh, passing off the clipboard he was holding to Phil. "I do not have time! There is still much to be done, and not much time in which to do it. You understand, yes?"

"I can understand being busy, yeah," Jack agreed, "but you shouldn't work yourself into the ground like this."

"I can rest when all is finished," North waved him off, moving on to the next collection of toys. Jack followed, clearing the distance in a single bound.

"If you keep this up, you're going to fall asleep on your feet. Or in the sleigh."

"I appreciate your concern, Jack," North smiled at him tiredly. "But unfortunately I must prioritise."

"You've got your priorities all messed up," Jack informed him. "So I'm going to give you a choice. We can either do this the easy way or the hard way."

North stopped, turning to face Jack fully and crossing his arms, one brow arched as if to say 'I'd like to see you try'.

Jack nodded to himself, having fully expected this. "Alright then." He leaned to the left to see past North to Sandy, "Hard way it is."

North's eyes widened as in that moment he realised Jack had not come alone. But before he could get out more than a startled 'Sandy!', he was hit full-on by a ball of dreamsand and crumpled to the floor, fast asleep. Jack and Sandy high-fived a job well done.

Phil panicked loudly.

"Oh relax," Jack rolled his eyes while Sandy had a couple of yetis carry North off to bed. "We've got this."

Incredibly, this did nothing to calm the frantic yeti, who had taken to gesturing widely and complaining in such a hurried string of garbles that Jack had absolutely no idea what he was saying. Probably something about having knocked out his boss, all things considered.

Jack grinned, snatching the clipboard from the yeti and examining it. Sandy moved to read over his shoulder. "Okay, so basically all that's left is supervising and approving, right? We can handle that."

Sandy mimicked wrapping a present.

"Okay, you go do that. I'll make sure everything runs smoothly here."

Plan of attacked formed, the two of them split up, Sandy heading off to the wrapping room. Jack turned to face a very dubious looking Phil.

"Alright, Phil, lead the way!"

Phil groaned.

 

* * *

 

It really wasn't as hard as Jack had expected it to be. By that point, all the toy models had been approved and were in their last stages of production, so he didn't have to worry about sorting out any design flaws or anything like that. The most he had to do was ensure that the last batches had the correct amount of toys and distract the elves when their destructive form of 'helping' started impeding on the yetis' work.

Sandy, too, was mainly just supervising, though he did end up helping out here and there. By dinnertime, the last stages of preparations were done, and the sleigh was beginning to be loaded up by the yetis – something Phil had been adamant they stay out of the way for.

With little else to do, Jack and Sandy headed off to the kitchen for a hard-earned snack.

"North will probably have to head off soon," Jack commented, eyeing the clock on the wall.

Sandy followed his gaze before nodding in agreement, downing a glass of eggnog.

"You reckon a few hours sleep is gonna be enough?"

Sandy's non verbal response was clear enough: _it'll have to be_.

His question was answered no less than ten minutes later, when a frantic Phil burst into the kitchen and started ranting in the angriest and most anxious tone Jack had ever heard from a yeti.

"Whoa, whoa, calm down for a second," Jack urged, standing. "Take a breath and try again. Slowly."

Thankfully, Phil complied, but the language gap meant Jack was only able to pick up a few words here and there. It was enough, though, for him to realise the crux of the problem.

"Something's wrong with North?"

At Phil's urging, Jack and Sandy followed him through the many hallways to North's room. The man was sprawled out on his bed, still fast asleep. Other than that he seemed fine. Jack glanced down at Sandy helplessly, not understanding what the problem was.

Phil must have picked up on this, because the next thing Jack knew, the yeti had crossed the room and was trying to shake North awake, without success. He stared at the two Guardians hopelessly before pointing at the clock.

Oh.

 _Oh_.

Oops.

Sandy's expression pretty much summed up the way Jack was feeling. "Yeah, I think we might've gone a bit overboard on the dreamsand," Jack agreed. "Is there a way to wake him up?"

Sandy bit his lip and Jack's heart sank.

"I'll take that as a no."

Phil started shouting again.

Jack frantically strained himself to the limits of his mental capacity to come up with a solution. His eyes rested on North's red coat hanging on the back of the door and he only just managed to refrain from shouting 'idea'.

"I have an idea," he declared, sprinting back out into the main part of the Workshop. Sandy and Phil followed him, the first in bemusement and the latter with a great deal of hope. Jack searched the room for a long moment before he found what he was looking for. "Here," he said, snatching up a discarded Santa hat and tossing it to Sandy before grabbing a second one for himself. At Sandy's confused frown he added, "If we're going to play Santa, we're going to have to look the part."

Sandy beamed, shoving the hat over his hair. Phil looked like he wanted to dig a hole and bury himself.

This was Jack's best idea ever.

 

* * *

 

This was Jack's worst idea ever.

The winter spirit struggled to hold onto the reins as the reindeer charged forward with impossible strength. Sandy, seated beside him, shared none of his dawning apprehension. They were taking the official launch tunnel, not the crazy supply tunnel North liked to use (purely because Jack wanted to stay in one piece), and the reindeer clearly knew they were not under the control of their master. Jack suspected, too, that Rudolph still held a grudge and was torturing him on purpose.

All at once, the tunnel disappeared and the sleigh was launched into the air. For a precarious moment Jack feared they wouldn't get airborne, but his worries were for naught. The reindeer might want to torture him, but they still knew what they were doing.

"Okay, Sandy," Jack said when he trusted himself to speak without screaming. "Where to first?"

Sandy pulled up the map Phil had drawn their route on and pointed to the first point.

Jack held a snow globe to his face and shouted, "Dezhnev, Russia!" and threw it far ahead of the sleigh.

It wasn't until they'd landed on the first roof that they encountered their first real problem. Jack sat dumbfounded in the sleigh, staring from the massive sack behind him to Sandy.

"How the heck are we going to get that thing down this tiny chimney?"

Sandy tapped his chin in thought. His eyes widened as an idea struck him and he created a series of images in quick succession.

"Yeah that could work," Jack smiled. He turned in his seat and opened up the sack. "...Wait which ones are for this house?"

Sandy didn't have an answer for that.

 

* * *

 

North blinked blearily as wakefulness slowly returned to him. He hadn't felt this well rested for weeks. With a large yawn and a stretch, he dragged himself out of bed and headed out into the Workshop, intent on finding out how proceedings had gone while he'd been asleep. Hopefully he hadn't lost too much time with his impromptu nap (which he didn't remember taking. He must have been more tired than he'd first thought).

He was surprised to find the Workshop empty, but a brief search had him locating the bulk of his yeti workforce partaking in a very solemn and anxious parody of their usual end-of-year celebrations. North, who had been on the verge of chastising them for sitting around when there was still much to be done, found his words died in his throat at the sight.

"What is this?" he asked.

The yetis looked up at the sound of his voice, several of them rising to their feet and talking over each other.

"One at a time," North cut them off.

The yetis all glanced over at Phil, who stepped forward and cleared his throat awkwardly before reiterating everything that had happened since North had fallen asleep (or, rather, as he was starting to recall, since Sandy had knocked him out). As the tale progressed, he grew more and more worried.

Part of being Santa Claus meant he had the knowledge of every child, of being able to get from one chimney to another, and knowing exactly what presents each child was to receive. Jack Frost was a winter spirit who could travel very far in a very short period, but he did not have this knowledge. Neither did Sandy, who, though used to delivering to children on a large scale, did not have the abilities to do what North did.

And, worse, North had no way of knowing where they were, so he couldn't come to their aid.

 

* * *

 

Jack stood on the edge of the sleigh, reins held loosely in one hand as he leaned over the edge and peered down at the town below. The scene playing out before him, to the untrained eye, would have seemed like anarchy, but it was an ordered chaos, and that was all that mattered.

It had quickly become clear to both himself and Sandy that neither of them were able to do what North did. Their attempt to get down a chimney, for example, had only ended up with Jack getting stuck and needing Sandy to pull him out again.

But they weren't completely hopeless. Between the two of them, they found they had a pretty significant knowledge of the children of any given town, and when Jack didn't know the name of one of them, Sandy was usually able to fill the blanks and vice versa.

As for knowing what child was to receive what present, well, it was pretty handy that the presents all had labels. For kids that had the same name, it became a little trickier, but a quick glimpse of the child's dreams (prompted into a Christmas theme) generally answered the question.

Despite this, though, they hadn't been able to deliver the gifts fast enough; not when it took them so long to sort through all the needed information. And so they'd had to find a new method, which was what had led to the current organised chaos Jack was surveying.

Jack hefted the next present from the sack and launched it with his staff. "Doll for Anastasia coming your way!" he called into the night. One of his frost creations snatched it from the air and its dreamsand companion led it to the correct house. The dreamsand critter then seeped through the glass of a window, reformed, and opened it from the inside, allowing the frost one to hand over the gift to be placed under the tree. The two of them then snatched the cookies for Santa and returned for the next gift.

And so the process continued from town to town, with hundreds of pairs travelling back and forth between the houses and the sleigh, with Sandy always a little further ahead on his cloud of sand, leading the way. Between the two of them, they actually had a chance of getting it all done before sunrise.

With their new system, the only problem that remained was figuring out what to do with all the milk and cookies the kids left for North. The carrots they could give to the reindeer, easy, but Jack knew he would never be able to eat that many cookies or drink that much milk. Sandy, too, would have found the task beyond him, bottomless pit when it came to eggnog or not. And so the solution they'd come up with was to collect it all into one big stash to take back to North later. Well, the cookies, anyway. The milk they'd had no way of storing.

By the time the sun had started peeking over the horizon, they arrived in one of their last towns. Jack didn't allow himself to relax yet, though. They still had a few hundred kids to get through.

 

* * *

 

Jack slouched back in his seat when the reindeer came in to land on the runway. Finally, after a very long night of struggling, they'd done it.

"We did it," he sighed, shutting his eyes and holding out a hand for a fist bump. "Great job, Sandman." When Sandy didn't return the gesture, Jack peeped and eye open and rolled his head to the side. Sandy was still seated beside him, but was dozing away, dead to the world. Jack chuckled to himself, letting his eyelid fall closed again as the yetis came to deal with the deer.

"Jack!"

The booming voice startled Jack back to wakefulness. Lazily, he lifted his head and looked over to where North was emerging from the lift. "Hey, North. You look better. A lot more rested."

"What were you thinking?!"

"That you could use a good night's sleep? I could too, actually. Sandy's already beaten me to it. I don't know how you do it, honestly."

"How did _you_ do it?" North countered. "All the lights are still glowing. You have done well, my young friend."

"Teamwork," Jack shrugged. "But I have definitely learned my lesson from this."

North raised an amused brow. "Oh?"

"Next time Sandy calls for an intervention, I'm going to make sure it's at least a week before deadline." Jack shuffled in his seat, readjusting his position so that he was leaning on Sandy. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have a nap. The sack is filled with cookies, if you're interested."

He thought he might have heard some protest or other about using a guest room but Jack was out like a light before North had even finished the sentence. He would later wake, though, to find himself tucked up in the bed of his usual room with only a vague clue as to how he'd gotten there.


	103. Burning Bridges

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a companion piece to 'Empathy for a Frozen Heart' (chapter 66 - but you won't need to go back and reread that one to understand what's going on) and was requested by crazylilgrace. Sorry about the delay (very busy with assignments and exams are just around the corner - see my FFN profile (same username) for details), and apologies in advance for further delays.

Pitch could pinpoint the exact moment his peace was disturbed. He hadn't even needed the murmurings of the shadows that draped his lair to inform him; the chilled winter breeze that drifted through the many hallowed hallways was tell-tale enough. The tinge of marginal fear coming from the intruder – the fear of being taken by surprise, he noted absently – turned subtle into a blatant scream of trespass. Of course, all of these factors converged together meant only one thing: Jack Frost was here.

Biting back a growl of irritation – why couldn't the brat just leave him alone to wallow in self-pity? – Pitch surged to his feet and sank immediately into the nearest patch of shadow, remerging in the main cavern.

It was an easy enough task to spot Jack Frost on the floor below, staff held forward defensively and gaze darting every which way in an attempt, no doubt, to spot him. Pitch shadow-teleported again so that he was standing a short distance behind the oblivious child.

"Frost?"

Jack flinched violently at his voice and swung around. He appeared ready to blast Pitch with ice but refrained. He masked his unease with a smirk and asked, "Surprised to see me?"

"If you're referring to seeing you above water, then no," Pitch returned with distaste, taking cautious yet confident steps towards him. "I was... alerted to that particular failing." And indeed he had been. He mentally grimaced at the memory. Seraphina had proven herself more often than not to be a fearsome adversary. But surely she would not find fault in self-defence; her beloved winter spirit had barged in uninvited, after all.

Jack, oblivious to Pitch's inner musings, countered, "And if I was referring to now?"

"Well, I'd be lying if I said I'd been expecting you."

The smug smile that worked its way onto Jack's face made Pitch curl his lip and he sunk into the shadows. The brat would not get the upper hand here, be it with words or with actions.

"The real question is," he said, voice echoing around the cavern, "what are you doing here?"

"I came to talk," Jack replied, gaze once again scanning his surroundings, trying to judge where Pitch would reveal himself next.

"Did you, now?"

"Yes. So would you mind winding up the creepy show and facing me?"

"Well," Pitch drawled, re-emerging behind Jack with a roll of his eyes, "since you asked so nicely."

Jack spun around again. Pitch leaned casually against the rock wall, feigning relaxation. Internally, however, he was tense and ready to react to any sudden attack. What could a Guardian have to talk about with him? Except, of course, in the event that 'talk' didn't really mean what it normally did. And he refused to let his guard down for a second.

As if reading his thoughts, Jack lowered his staff so that it hung limply at his side. Pitch's eyes immediately narrowed as he honed in on the movement. What was this? An attempt to trick him? To lull him into a false sense of security? Or was the boy really that stupid as to leave himself undefended in the face of the Boogieman?

"No games, no lies, no tricks," Jack said, as if attempting to reassure him. "Just talk."

The notion was completely absurd. For a long moment, he couldn't even find the words to express just how ridiculous it was. "What on Earth could the two of us have to talk about?" he eventually snapped mockingly.

"You said it yourself," Jack shrugged carelessly. "We understand each other better than I think either of us would care to admit."

Pitch pushed away from the wall, standing to his full height. He didn't quite tower over Jack the way he had in Antarctica, when he'd been at the pinnacle of power, but he was still at least a foot taller, possibly two, and he knew he was intimidating even without the added height.

Jack's words confused him. _Now_ the brat wanted his companionship? Not when he'd offered it? Well, the offer was off the table; had been since Jack had rejected his proposal, rejected _him,_ all that time ago.

"The Guardians finally get tired of their new pet?" Because he could come up with no other explanation. No doubt the Guardians would be less than thrilled if they knew what their newest member was doing, unless, of course, Jack the screw-up had made one too many mistakes. Guardians of Childhood, indeed; they couldn't even handle one child, three hundred years old or not.

Oblivious, Jack spun on his heel and began casually strolling through the cavern, as if on a leisurely stroll through a park and not through the dark recesses of the Boogieman's home. Pitch watched him scathingly, prepared for anything. Jack's feet carried him all the way over to Pitch's Globe of Belief, where he stopped.

"The truth is, you don't have to be alone any more than I did," Jack's voice rang through the silence, bouncing off the rock walls.

Pitch felt his ire rise. Just who did that brat think he was? Who did he think _Pitch_ was? The Nightmare King had no need for _friends_. He was furious that Jack would even dare to insinuate such a thing. But that wasn't the point. The point was, Jack's words implied that everything, all his suffering, all his toils and failures, all the seething glares and barbed words he'd been on the receiving end of through so many centuries (not that he cared at all about this latter point), was his fault, as if Jack and his precious Guardians hadn't interfered at all.

"Oh really?" he practically growled. His rage curled in his chest like a tangible thing. "Then care to explain why I've been driven to living underground, to hiding under beds and scavenging what fear I can get without you and your precious Guardians fighting me like your personal punching bag?"

Jack didn't shift from his position beyond giving him a considering glance over his shoulder, head tilted to the side as if he couldn't understand why Pitch had reacted in such a way. "Hiding under beds is your thing, though, isn't it? That and closets – they're the darkest places in a room at night; what better place for you to sneak up on them from?" His gaze returned to the Globe. "Fear isn't something that needs to be eradicated."

Okay, Pitch had not been expecting that, least of all from the so-called Guardian of Fun. Just what was Jack's point? What was he getting at? "Have you told this to the Guardians?" It would certainly explain his presence here – such a radical view would not go down favourably with that bunch of stuck-up, self-absorbed Moon-lovers. "I highly doubt they'd agree."

"Then they're wrong."

The words that had been on the tip of Pitch's tongue, ready to lash out with the same strength as a physical blow, sputtered and died. As he desperately tried to recollect his thoughts, Jack turned fully to face him.

"Fear is important," Jack continued, "especially for kids. You're just too ambitious. Instead of trying to make the world a place where only fear and darkness exists, you should help the kids with it. Fear keeps them from doing things that could hurt them; it's what stops them from running out onto the road, or climbing a tree that's too tall, or getting into a car with strangers, or... or going onto a frozen lake before checking how thick the ice is."

That last example, they both knew, was from personal experience. Pitch didn't need to see the deepest fears hidden away in Jack's heart to know that; the wistful and sad look on his face was proof enough. Of course, Jack had a point with his argument – he could very well use his centre to _help_. But that would mean lowering himself to being like the Guardians, to being _nice_ and _pleasant_ and _loving_. It would mean he would actually have to care about those irritating children who cared nothing for him. It would mean swallowing his ego.

"This," Jack's gesturing wave at the Globe dragged his attention back to the matter at hand, "is proof that you can be so much more than what you're limiting yourself to. All Guardians have a Globe of Belief." As if to prevent any accusatory comments, he pulled a small ice-version of a Globe from around his neck. It was so small – only the size of his palm – Pitch wondered how it was in any way effective. "So I think that means you were at least offered the chance to be one."

Ha. As if. Pitch had a Globe of Belief because he'd made one. He had a Globe so he could keep an eye on the power base of his greatest enemies. But any such consideration was washed away by the fury that filled him at Jack's inferred meaning.

"I am not one of those do-gooder-"

"I used to think the same thing," Jack cut him off. "I'm not like them – I don't work to short deadlines and my work is more fun than hard. Not to mention back then there wasn't a single person who could see me. But because of you I realised something. I realised that just because I'm not like them, doesn't mean I'm not a Guardian." He paused momentarily, as if to collect his thoughts. Pitch hoped he was getting to the point sometime this year. "A Guardian is someone who protects kids, who only wants what's best for them, and no matter what your centre is, as long as you strive for that you're doing a good job. Success is relative."

And therein lay the very problem. "I couldn't care less about those brats!"

"I said no lies," Jack said accusatorially. "That whole 'take over the world thing' was because you wanted kids to believe in you. But you don't have to take away all the good things to achieve that. You can use fear to _create_ those good things. How do you think courage is born? Or bravery? It's by overcoming fear."

Slowly, Jack began closing the distance between them.

"At the Tooth Palace you said you didn't want to be hated. So why don't you become someone who helps them grow? All you have to do is tone it down on the nightmares, and only let them fear the things that truly deserve to be." He stopped less than five metres away, staring up at him. "You can still be a Guardian. You can still have a family."

He was wrong. He was wrong. He would not subjugate himself like that. He didn't _care_ about the wellbeing of human children. He didn't _care_ if they were happy or brave. He just wanted to be believed in. He wanted to be seen, to be _tangible._ But he would not allow himself to be defeated over and over again – even if just psychologically. Not by the Guardians. And _definitely_ not by the likes of those weak brats.

Jack pretended to understand. And, Pitch supposed, he did in a way. But they were not the same. They were similar, but they were still so intrinsically different. Jack didn't understand because he was not in the same position and never had been. They both knew what it was like to not be believed in, true, and they both knew what it was like to be hated. But Jack didn't have to lower himself to being the villain who was forever conquered; never had been.

"Get out!" Pitch snapped, something more than anger coiling through him. It almost felt like longing or regret, but he refused to think on it. "You don't understand anything!"

Both spirits froze at the words that tore themselves unbidden from Pitch's throat. They were an exact echo from their 'conversation' during the Easter debacle.

Then, ever so slowly, Jack whispered, "But I do. And I'm offering you the chance to understand, too. We _can_ make them believe." He held out one hand, expecting Pitch to take it. "But the world doesn't have to be pitch black. It's enough for you to just be a part of it. Let me help you like you helped me."

Pitch stared at the proffered limb numbly. He'd meant what he'd said that day, what now felt like years ago. He had longed for a family. And he had reached out to this winter child in whom he'd thought he'd found a kindred spirit, but Jack had spat in his face. Now he had the nerve to turn the same offer back on Pitch. But Pitch wasn't sure he was willing to pay the price that came with it. And he wasn't sure he was willing to so soon forgive the way Jack had taken his wishes and hopes and stomped on them.

He belatedly realised Jack was still watching him expectantly. By way of answer, he batted the hand away and slipped into the protection of the shadows. This conversation was over.

"I don't need your help and I don't want your pity," he said, disembodied voice drifting through the cavern. Then, against his better judgement, he added, "You have twenty seconds to get out before I set my Nightmares on you."

"I'm not giving up on you, Pitch," he heard Jack call as the boy began heading back towards the tunnel that had admitted him. "Just... just think about it." And then he was gone.

Pitch resisted the urge to groan. He had a bad feeling Jack wasn't going to let this go, and any intervention on Pitch's part would have to be rather forceful if he was going to drill it into Jack's head. And such an action would only cause more problems.

He reappeared on one of the stairways and cast a wistful glance at the entrance to his lair.

Jack Frost didn't understand.


	104. Documentary: The Life of Penguins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo! It's been a while. To make up for the long delay, this is gonna be a triple update (though they're all quite short, unfortunately. But hey, three short chapters are better than one, right? And it'll mean I can cut a chunk out of the request list)
> 
> This one's not a request - it's been sitting on my own ideas list for a little while now. The other two are requests. Enjoy!
> 
> Disclaimed

"Weighing up to forty-five kilograms, and reaching a height of around 120 centimetres, the emperor penguin is the largest of all living penguin species."

The camera zoomed in on the colony of birds in the distance. They appeared unassuming enough, chattering away to one another and feeding their babies. The cameraman returned the lens' focus to the field reporter.

"They are found only here," the reporter continued, "in the freezing temperatures of Antarctica. As you can see behind me, they are rather social animals, with both males and females foraging for food and raising the chicks."

The reporter turned, gesturing for his crew to follow as they made a cautious approach to the still-oblivious birds.

"Their diet consists mostly of fish, crustaceans, and cephalopods, though this varies from colony to colony."

A single penguin called out as it spotted the humans' approach, and as one the rest of the colony turned to stare. Wary of spooking them, the film crew came to a slow halt.

"Ah, they've spotted us," the reporter smiled. "In order to survive in such harsh climates, penguins within a colony must work together for mutual protection. Keeping an eye out for predators is one such example of this, as we have just seen."

The cameraman turned his camera's focus back on the penguins as, in a single unit, the colony began waddling over. He cast a wary glance at the reporter, not really knowing how dangerous these birds could be if threatened (that one time with the moose in Canada had been bad enough), but the reporter's beaming grin set his heart at ease.

In a matter of moments, the whole colony had mingled with them, as if the film crew were just another part of their colony and not strange invaders. One of the birds, a particularly chubby one, peered up inquisitively at the camera, cocking its head to the side.

The reporter opened his mouth to continue, but before he could utter a single word, the chubby penguin let out an ear-splitting shriek.

The colony reacted immediately.

As one unit, they charged the documentary crew, sharp beaks grabbing onto clothes, shoes, equipment, anything they could reach. One of the sound technicians gave a cry of 'retreat', but it was highly unnecessary; anyone with any sense was already a good few hundred metres away and counting. A particularly tall penguin latched onto a strap on the cameraman's camera and he tugged futilely at it, trying to wrestle it free without injuring himself or the surprisingly menacing bird. He didn't like the glint in its eyes.

After almost a full minute of useless struggling, the cameraman spotted two more birds heading in his direction and at a furious waddle. He decided it was time to cut his losses. A camera could be replaced. His limbs could not.

With a frustrated growl, he released his grip on the very expensive piece of equipment and high-tailed it after the rest of his crew. Maybe it was time for a career change.

 

* * *

 

Jack's arrival in Antarctica was heralded, like it so often was, by a chorus of excited chirps and assorted noises. His feet barely had time to make contact with the ice before he was being swarmed, his colony pressing itself against him on all sides in their own version of a greeting.

"Hey," he chuckled, ruffling the feathers on the closest one's head. "Did you miss me?"

The penguin snapped playfully at him, waving its wings excitably.

"So what have you been up to while I was gone?" Jack asked, plonking himself down to be further smothered.

George pushed his way to the front of the crowd with his own posse, each dragging something along the ice. The other birds all parted to make room. They finally came to a halt before him, looking mightily pleased with themselves as they showed off their prizes.

Jack stared at the assortment of technical equipment in silence for a long time before breaking down into hysterical laughter.


	105. End of Slender

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by crazylilgrace. It's a bit different to the request but I figured it was time to put poor old Slendy to rest.

"Why does this keep happening?" Jack groaned as he squinted into the darkness around him. He'd been trapped in this darn forest for over an hour now and no matter which direction he went in, he always seemed to end up back where he'd started. He'd even tried flying away, but the canopy above was like a net, preventing him from breaking through to freedom. Needless to say, he was getting very tired of it.

"Hello?!" he called out, hoping maybe there was someone around – even a forest nymph would be better than nothing – who could show him the way out. But his call was met only with silence.

Something white tacked to the trunk of a tree caught his attention and he wandered over. He took one look at the messy scrawl (unreadable in the poor lighting) and felt his irritation reach new heights. "Oh no. Uh-uh. Not again. Not today. I am so done."

Of course this was freaking Slender Man's forest. They really should have dealt with the problem properly last time. Well, now it looked like it was Jack's turn and he was going to make sure it was solved once and for all. Besides, no one was overly into that stupid game anymore, as far as he was aware, and given that belief had created the guy, the lack of it should mean his Slender stalker would be pretty weak.

Careful not to touch the paper, Jack turned his attention to his immediate surroundings. It was dead silent; no creepy music, no stomping, no fog. Nothing. That, at least, was a good sign. If he didn't start the game, then he couldn't get caught in the trap. But he still needed to find a way to solve the whole creepy-spirit-attacking-kids issue. If Slender Man was even still around. It was possible the page was just a remnant of what used to be. But that was probably wishful thinking.

Jack clutched his staff in a death-grip, ready for anything. "Hey, Slendy! You here?!"

Nothing. Just the hoot of an owl in the distance. Well, if there were animals nearby, that surely meant there wasn't something predatory skulking around.

Standing around wasn't solving anything. And clearly Slender Man wasn't going to come out just because Jack asked him nicely. Biting his lip and certain he was making a terrible decision, Jack spun on his heel and yanked the page off the tree. He immediately tensed, taking to the air in the hopes that a bit of height would prevent him from getting taken by surprise.

A gentle breeze ruffled the remaining leaves on the branches, but beyond that there was nothing. After ten minutes of hovering, watching and waiting with nothing to show for it, Jack slowly descended back to the ground. He gazed down at the piece of paper, feeling oddly numb.

"Guess Slender Man really is gone," he muttered. But, then, why was the forest still trapping him? Unless... Of course! The pages! North had been teaching him bits and pieces about magic when he'd had the time, and Jack was sure he remembered something about spells that required items distributed in precise locations to work. Maybe the spell on the forest was because of the pages.

"Right then," Jack nodded to himself, and tore up the page he was holding. He was just going to have to find the other seven pages and destroy them. It was going to be a long night.


	106. Poor Sportsmanship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Seryyth

Jack sprinted down the length of the field, giving the soccer ball a kick every few paces to keep it ahead of himself and away from the others. The kids had insisted he join them for at least one game, and, well, he was weak to their pleading faces. Not that he would have said no to begin with.

He glanced up from the ball to the goal just ahead. Monty was standing before it, looking decidedly nervous but with a glint of determination shining in his eyes. Jack grinned disarmingly at him, but then suddenly Caleb was in front of him, making an attempt to snatch the ball.

Jack created a patch of ice on the ground before him, using it to propel him around the boy, narrowly avoiding the theft. The ball rolled much faster on the ice and the goal was now only mere metres away.

"Hey, no powers!" he heard Caleb call behind him.

Jack laughed, tossing an easy grin over his shoulder. "Okay, okay, no powers!"

Before he had a chance to even finish the sentence, however, something slammed into his side, sending him crashing into the snow with a loud 'oof'. He looked up from his prone position, shaking excess snow from his face and hair as Cupcake hauled herself back to her feet and cheered as Pippa, having used the diversion to steal the ball, sent it back up the field to the other goal.

Jamie, the goalkeeper of his team, stood at the ready, watching carefully. Pippa kicked the ball to Caleb before Claude could cut her off, and then Caleb kicked it back to Pippa before she went for the goal. Jamie jumped a second too late and the ball sailed over his head and between the makeshift makers they'd used for the goal.

"GOAL!" Cupcake cried, pumping her arm.

"I can't believe you tackled me," Jack laughed, picking himself up.

"If you get to use your powers I get to use mine," she shrugged. When Jack raised a brow at her, she smirked and flexed her arm. "Super strength."

"Yeah, okay, that's fair," Jack conceded.

"What's the score now?" Jamie asked, coming back to rejoin them after having retrieved the ball.

"I think it's our team three and yours four," Pippa replied.

"Wanna do first one to five wins?"

"Okay, but this time," she sent Jack a meaningful look that he pretended not to see, "no powers." Then, to Cupcake, "Or tackling."

"Fiiiine," the two chorused.

"Dibs being goalkeeper!" Claude announced, hurrying to secure the spot.

"Could someone maybe switch with me?" Monty asked. "Being goalkeeper makes me uneasy."

"Sure, Monty," Cupcake slapped him on the shoulder as she passed him to the other end of the field.

The remaining others gathered around the centre and put the ball in the middle.

"Ready?" Caleb asked, one foot on the ball. "Go!"


	107. Horsing Around

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hnghhhhhhhh writer's block whyyyyyyyyyyyy
> 
> Not entirely happy with this, but meh I'm over it now and it's been WAY too long since I've updated (sorry). Might do a second part? Idk up to you guys
> 
> Requested by WEast and is, I'm sure many of you will realise, a crossover (shock horror). Not sure where it fits in on the Marvel timeline but I'll leave that to your imaginations

It was fair to say that, in his three hundred or so years of existence and the fourteen or so before that, Jack had seen some fairly strange things in his time. Some things he found were significantly stranger than others. The Guardians, for instance, were somewhere between 'how is this my life' and 'I think I need my eyes checked' on the scale (which ranged from 'almost normal' all the way up to 'what a time to be alive', and then sometimes even further, until it reached 'I need to rethink my entire existence'). Heck, Jack himself was up around '404 error: cannot compute'. This, however, surpassed all of this, even if purely because _what in the actual hell did I just see?_

He thought it was a fairly valid question, all things considered. After all, he'd just been overtaken by a horse. In the air. Several hundred kilometres above sea level. Over open ocean.

Oh, and the horse had eight legs.

Jack, having immediately stuttered to a halt, openly gaped in the direction the horse had gone. At least, he was pretty sure it was a horse. He was having trouble consolidating his idea of horses and the other factors of the situation. Like the fact that it was flying at a speed faster than any horse had any right to. Or the fact that _they were currently over open ocean_.

This was something he needed to confirm, Jack decided, and he promptly took off again in the direction he'd seen it go. But, as it turned out, tracking a super fast eight-legged horse that could _fly_ was harder than he'd thought, and he would have lost it entirely if the wind hadn't taken over navigation.

It wasn't until they were somewhere over Sweden that Jack felt the wind starting to slow down, and he was quick to spot his target in a snow-covered meadow below, its large form a striking contrast to all the white. Jack allowed himself to drop down closer, perching in the frosted limbs of a dead tree to get a better look.

It was definitely the largest horse he'd ever seen – even North, tall as he was, would have been dwarfed standing next to it – and its fur was a deep black colour. More importantly, though...

"That horse has too many legs," Jack whispered. Why did it have eight legs? _How_ did it have eight legs? What was wrong with this horse?!

Apparently having heard him (it had good hearing as well, it would seem), the freaky horse lifted its great head and stared at him with large dark eyes. Jack stared back. Silence reigned for several long moments. The stare-off was broken, though, by the appearance of a man who stepped around from the horse's other side. His hair was dark and slicked back, and his clothes, green and black, were of a sort that Jack could not identify.

From where he hid, Jack could see the man mutter something to the horse, but the words were lost to him. Then, the stranger followed his horse's line of sight until he, too, was looking directly at Jack.

 _Wait, can he see me?!_ Certainly, he'd gained more believers over time, but this was an adult! ...Or was he? He was hanging around with a clearly abnormal horse. Maybe he was a spirit?

"Midgardian spirit, reveal yourself!" the man called, his voice easily carrying over to Jack on the wind.

"Reveal myself?" Jack muttered. That made it sound like the guy couldn't see him, and yet he was still staring directly at him. Figuring he'd been spotted anyway (by the freak horse at the very least), Jack drifted down on a stiff breeze, landing lightly in the snow a short distance away from the two – close enough that their voices could easily carry but not so close that Jack would be in danger of being grabbed. The man's eyes followed his movement.

"Um, hello?" Jack waved awkwardly. The horse's ear flicked and it snorted but the man made no indication that he'd heard. Jack waved a hand in front of the guy's face but it quickly became apparent that, no, he was still invisible. Jack turned his attention to focus solely on the horse, but he kept the man in his peripheral vision, just in case. "So, you're definitely the strangest horse I've ever seen," he said conversationally.

The horse lifted its head almost proudly but Jack didn't like the mildly affronted look in its eyes.

"I meant that in a good way!" Jack hastily added. "You're a very... impressive horse. Very... fast." Oh, Moon, what was he doing? He was talking to a horse. An eight-legged horse. Maybe he was drunk again. Good lord he hoped not.

But it would explain a few things.

"Soooo," Jack shifted awkwardly. Then, nodding at the man, "Who's your friend?"

The man in question was still staring at him (or maybe just where he thought he was?), a slight furrow to his brow. The horse nudged the man in the chest with its muzzle.

"Identify yourself, spirit," the man demanded.

Jack blinked at him. "If you can't even see me I don't think you can hear me. I'm Jack Frost," he introduced anyway.

Absolutely no reaction whatsoever. Wonderful.

"I said identify yourself!" the man repeated, his tone harsher. The horse kicked the ground with one of its (many) hooves in agitation.

"I just did! It's not my fault you don't believe!" Jack turned to the freak horse. "Help me out here!"

The horse did not help. For all its apparent intelligence and magical properties, it was about as helpful as a regular horse when it came to communication; which is to say not at all. _The anthropomorphic rabbit can talk, so why can't the flying eight-legged horse?_ Just his luck. One of these days he was going to track down Lady Luck and tell her exactly what he thought of her prejudice.

An idea popped into his head and, not knowing what else to do, Jack seized it. Using the butt of his staff, he began writing in the snow between them, 'I am Jack Frost'.

This, thankfully, the man could see. He mouthed the name silently, before his attention returned to where Jack stood. Except this time Jack knew he had become visible.

"I had anticipated Jokul Frosti to be more intimidating," he confessed.

Jack scowled, "Okay, one," he said, holding up a finger, "I'm not Jokul Frosti. I'm Jack Frost. And two: I can be plenty intimidating when I want to be."

"I see no difference."

"Jokul Frosti is a frost giant, isn't he? I'm not. I'm – um, _was –_ human. So now you know who I am, who are you?"

The man appeared dissatisfied but beyond the raising of his brows said nothing more on the topic. "I am Loki of Asgard," he replied, as if he'd expected Jack to have already known this.

"Okay, and who's the horse?" He wanted to add on 'and why does he have eight-legs?' but thought it impolite.

"Sleipnir."

Jack nodded. Right. Loki and Sleipnir. Those names sounded... oddly familiar. So did Asgard, come to think of it. And then he remembered.

"Wait, Norse god of trickery? _That_ Loki?" Which would make Sleipnir... Oh. Wow, okay. A horse and his mother out on a stroll over open ocean, travelling faster than the speed of sound. How touching. "What are you doing here?"

"I fail to see how that is any business of yours," Loki replied, though he did look pleased to have been recognised.

"It's not," Jack placated. "It's just we don't see many old gods around these days." Ceres was an exception because of her role as the autumn spirit, but on the whole the gods didn't really hang out on the mortal plane anymore.

"Are you not a god yourself?"

Jack outright laughed. " _Me?_ A _god?_ " The idea was ludicrous, if not purely because the idea of people worshipping him was so far beyond plausible it was funny. "99% of the world's population think I'm just an expression."

Loki frowned. "On Asgard, Jokul Frosti is considered the god of glaciers."

"Not Jokul Frosti," Jack reminded him.

"You have ice magic, do you not?"

"Well, yeah..."

"And you have a connection to the wind?"

"Yeah...?"

"Then, though you may not be as we envisaged, you are Jokul Frosti. Is the name 'Jack Frost' not close enough to allude to this?"

Still, it didn't sound right to him. Jokul Frosti was a Jötun. Jack was decidedly _not_. "I think it's more likely that my name was derived from Jokul Frosti than me actually being him," he confessed.

"Then that only makes the connection all the more likely," Loki countered. "You are a more modern form of the same being."

Jack didn't really know how to respond to that. He was considered a god by actual gods? That was... a little overwhelming. He couldn't wait to tell Ceres.

"Fine then," he said, deciding just to play along for now, regardless of his misgivings. "From one god to another, what are you doing here?"

Loki raised a hand to absently stroke Sleipnir's neck. The horse returned the display of affection by butting his nose into Loki's shoulder. He was silent for so long, Jack began to wonder if he'd ever respond, but, then, to the winter spirit's surprise, "Delaying the inevitable."

"That sounds kinda ominous." The pensive expression that crossed Loki's face only served to strengthen Jack's belief that whatever Loki was avoiding was far from enjoyable. Right then. As the Guardian of Fun, it was his duty to fix this, regardless that Loki was definitely not a child. "So hey," he said, drawing the god's attention. "You're the god of trickery, right?" he began, a sly smirk lifting the corners of his mouth.

"I am," Loki acknowledged, a matching smile spreading across his face as he no doubt realised where this was going. Beside him, Sleipnir gave a low whiney, as if he also knew exactly what was happening and disapproved.

"Well, I like to think of myself as something of a prankster, too, so I was wondering..."

"If you are suggesting what I believe you are," Loki cut him off, in a decidedly better mood than he had been a minute ago, "I have only one condition."

Jack nodded for him to continue, unable to stop the grin from splitting his face.

"I get to choose the target."

How could he say no to that?


	108. Horsing Around Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to the amazing frosteddragonheart, without whom it would never have been completed (the plot is 99.99% hers). She is my knight in shining armour, fighting off the terrible heathen, writer's block.
> 
> I hope it meets expectations!

One ride on Sleipnir and Jack knew flying would never be the same again. It was exhilarating, the wind slapping him hard enough that for a long moment he thought it would peel his face right off, and he knew, no matter how hard he tried, he would never be able to recreate it on his own.

Barely able to keep his eyes open, Jack, seated behind Loki and holding on for dear life, tried to see where they were heading, but all he could make out was a dizzying blur and he had to shut his eyes to keep from throwing up. How could a horse move so fast?! Granted, Sleipnir wasn't exactly an ordinary horse but _still_.

For a moment a strange, pulling sensation washed over him – not dissimilar to the feeling of going through one of North's snow globes – but it was gone just as quickly as it came. Despite his curiosity, Jack kept his eyes firmly clenched shut until, at last, they started slowing down. When he did dare to peek again, it was to find an awe-inspiring sight that made his breath catch in his throat.

They'd arrived in some kind of city with towering structures and a vast body of water stretching out around it. A huge palace shaped like the pipes of an organ loomed over its surroundings, glowing a brilliant gold as the light struck it. Jack didn't need to be told that this was not a mortal city.

"Welcome to Asgard," Loki said, neither pride nor disdain in his tone.

It was more incredible than Tooth's palace in Punjam Hy Loo, which was saying something. "Wow," Jack breathed. He jumped up into a crouch on Sleipnir's back to get a better look.

Sleipnir, without urging, carried them closer to the palace, finally coming to a stop before what Jack assumed to be a stable, though it was just as extravagant as the rest of the city. Loki dismounted without preamble and Jack followed his lead. With a parting stroke for Sleipnir and a few whispered words, the two of them set off again, this time on foot, towards the palace proper.

"So what's the plan?" Jack asked, lengthening his stride in order to keep up.

Loki looked down at him with a mischievous smirk that Jack couldn't help mirroring. "There is to be a feast in the palace," he began. "A large number of guests will be attending."

"I like where this is going."

"They'll be distracted," Loki continued quietly, grin growing. A few Asgardians gave him strange looks as he passed, no doubt not seeing Jack and assuming he was talking to himself. "Which will make it easy."

"What do you want me to do?"

.

* * *

.

As it turned out, the interior of the palace was just as fantastic as the outside. Beautifully carved marble pillars lined every room they traversed through and every hallway was decorated with tapestries. Jack had never seen anything like it. And the people! They could barely walk ten steps before they came across someone. Most of them appeared to be servants or guards, if Jack were to take a guess, and each levelled Loki with a suspicious or wary glance as they passed. One or two of them frowned in Jack's general direction, but for most part he went unnoticed.

Eventually they came to a halt before a set of double wooden doors, so polished that Jack could easily make out his own reflection. When Loki hesitated, he turned a questioning glance on him.

"Everything okay?"

"There is a chance they will sense your presence," he said.

Jack shrugged noncommittally. "If they do we'll just convince them I'm not a threat."

"Easier said than done. They already do not trust me and you are far too similar to a Jotun for them to trust you, either."

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Jack reassured, stepping forward and pushing open the doors before Loki had a chance to change his mind. What were the chances he'd ever get to play a prank on Asgard's finest again?

The room beyond the door was vast, with several long tables lining the walls, all completely covered with an assortment of foods. There were people at every available seat, except for an empty space at the table at the front, raised slightly on a podium, next to a large blond man devouring the leg of an animal that was probably a cow, judging by size. Then again, did they even have cows here?

Several people looked up as Loki confidently strode into the room. Jack was sure to stick close to him as they made their way towards the head table. But the closer they got, the quieter the volume became, until every head was swivelled in their direction. Loki ignored all of them, carelessly taking his seat beside the blond guy. Jack stood awkwardly behind his chair, noting the number of eyes directed at him (or where he was standing, at the very least).

Still ignoring his general surroundings, Loki reached out and started piling food onto his plate. Everyone else continued staring. Jack shifted uncomfortably.

"Um, Loki? I think they know I'm here," he said.

"It would appear that way," Loki conceded.

The blond frowned. "Your pardon, brother; what would appear which way?"

Loki didn't look at him, but the words were acknowledged by a minute tightening of his grip around fork. "I was speaking to my guest."

Blondy's eyes darted to Jack briefly.

"Do you perhaps mean the invisible spirit behind you?" an older man with an eye-patch, seated at the very centre of the table on a throne-like chair, enquired.

"That would be him."

"And who, might I ask," the old man continued, "would he be?"

Loki took a bite of his meal. He took his time chewing and swallowing before replying, "Jokul Frosti."

Jack could pinpoint the exact second the entirety of the feast's attendees could see him. Never had he felt more exposed in all his three hundred years; these weren't just people who could see him ( _believers_ , his mind supplied), these were _gods_. It was thoroughly overwhelming. And mildly terrifying.

Waving awkwardly and tightening his grip on his staff he said, "Uh, hi. It's Jack Frost, actually."

The old guy, the blond, and various others around the place stood to their feet, gripping whatever weapons they had and staring at him like they expected him to suddenly launch an attack. He took a hasty step closer to Loki and nudged him with his elbow, hissing a quiet, "A little help please?!"

Blondy didn't like this, though, from the menacing step forwards he took. Startled, Jack jumped into the air, allowing a draft to carry him up well out of reach. He hadn't known whether the wind here would aid him like the one on Earth, but it seemed even here it was his friend. A relieving thought.

The display of powers did nothing to reassure the group of Norse gods below, though. If anything it made them less pleased to see him than they had already been. Jack shot a pleading look at Loki, who calmly put down his utensils.

"Did you not understand the word 'guest'?" he asked.

"Jokul Frosti is a Jotun!" Blondy exclaimed, gesturing towards Jack with a huge war hammer.

"Does he look like a Jotun to you? And if he were," Loki turned a challenging glare on him, "would that be a problem?"

Blondy faltered momentarily. "That is different, brother. Have you not heard the stories?"

"This Jokul–"

"It's Jack!" Jack countered. He was ignored.

"–is not the one from such tales, Thor. He is a winter spirit from Midgard and means no harm."

"Why is he here?" the old guy demanded.

Loki raised a challenging brow. "Because I invited him."

"You know the rules, Loki."

"Yes, yes, no mortal belongs on Asgard," Loki rolled his eyes, waving a flippant hand. "But clearly he is not a mere mortal."

"I really didn't mean to cause any problems," Jack interrupted. _Well, not right now, anyway_. As for later, well...

The old guy eyed him suspiciously. He had a feeling it was going to be hard to convince these people to believe him, and even more for them to trust him. He frantically searched for a way to prove his (mostly) benevolence, pausing when he caught sight of the very numerous amounts of alcoholic beverages. Cautiously, he dropped down closer to the ground, making no sudden moves, as if they were a pack of hungry wolves and not just a room full of beefy men and equally threatening looking women. When he managed to land on a tabletop without being attacked, he took it as a good sign to continue.

"Do you mind if I...?" he gestured vaguely to a tankard. The owner said nothing, watching him menacingly. Jack bit his lip and, very slowly, reached out to poke the mug. The man flinched and Jack immediately rocketed back up to the ceiling.

The man stared at him for a moment before returning his attention to the tankard. Hesitantly, he reached out and lifted it, appearing to admire the frost ferns that had spread across the outside, before taking a sip. "It is the perfect temperature!" he cried.

Loki gave Jack an imperceptible nod. "I will hold myself accountable for his actions."

Thor, who Jack thought had looked won over the second he'd chilled the mead, turned to the old guy. "Father, if Loki trusts him so do I. Perhaps he has many tales to regale us with!"

The old guy didn't look convinced. A blonde, middle-aged woman on his other side laid a gentle hand on his wrist. "He does not seem malicious," she said calmly. "And he has come all this way."

"Very well," the old guy conceded, turning to Jack. "You may stay, spirit. But should you prove yourself to be a threat you will not live to regret it."

"Duly noted," Jack gulped. He lingered in the air for a moment longer before darting back over to Loki and once more letting his feet touch the ground.

"Someone bring the boy a chair!"

"Boy," Jack grumbled. "I'm 300 years old."

"You are an infant compared to us," Loki smirked, offering him a plate, which Jack politely declined.

A chair was suddenly pushed behind him, knocking him off his feet, and he landed on the seat with an 'oof'. Before he had any time to register the change, he was tucked up against the table on Loki's left.

"Little spirit."

Jack glanced up to find a small mob of gods and goddesses crowding the front of the table where he was now sitting. Each was holding a tankard of mead. The closest held it out to him expectantly. Bemused, Jack turned to Loki and raised a brow. The gesture was returned by a very meaningful look and a slight inclination of the head. Jack suppressed a grin. Time to set their prank into action.

"Sure," he smiled pleasantly, obligingly chilling all their drinks. Loki, meanwhile, unseen and unnoticed by all, combined Jack's magic with his own, using the former's to mask his seiðr. It would take a while, but it would be worth it.

The rest of the evening wore on in a similar fashion; every now and then a god or goddess would approach him to have him cool their drink, and he was eventually coaxed into trying some of the food (he resolutely refused to touch anything alcoholic). At one point, Thor insisted he tell a story, to which he'd responded with the defeat of Pitch, much to the amazement and fascination of most. Jack found he greatly enjoyed himself, so much so that he forgot why he was even there in the first place.

But then the old guy – Odin, he'd eventually discovered – announced the banquet over and ordered Loki to take him home. As Jack followed Loki out into the hallway, the latter leaned down and whispered, "Follow my every instruction if you do not wish to get caught."

Jack nodded his understanding and the two continued on in silence until they reached the stables. Sleipnir was pleased to see them – or Loki, at least – and almost forced his way out of his stall in his eagerness to reach him. Loki smiled fondly at the horse, taking the time to stroke him before unlatching the door and letting both Jack and himself in.

"Come into the corner," Loki instructed, "where we won't be seen."

Jack watched in fascination as, without preamble, Loki worked his magic. In less time than he had expected, his partner in pranking had created two perfect copies of them. Sleipnir, completely unfazed, nudged Jack's shoulder, enticing the winter spirit to give him a quick pat.

Without needing any prompting, the two copies climbed onto Sleipnir's back.

"Sleipnir," the real Loki said, instantly gaining the horse's attention. "Go to the portal and wait there for an hour, then come back. We will meet you back here."

Sleipnir nickered in understanding and tore out of the stable, disappearing outside in a furious gallop.

"Man, that horse is fast," Jack muttered. "So what do we do now?"

"Now we go and admire our handiwork."

.

* * *

.

It truly was a sight to behold, Jack mused, struggling to hold in his mirth. Laughing, no matter how badly he wanted to, would get them caught though, and so he vehemently kept his mouth clamped shut. Loki, beside him, seemed to be sharing the same problem.

There was something about harmless chaos that was just _so amusing_.

Everyone who had had Jack cool their drink earlier was now running around in a state of mild panic, unable to comprehend why their bodies were glowing a faint green and their voices had gone an incredibly high pitch. The initial scare had been hilarious – nothing but a bunch of burly gods and goddesses freaking out in soprano over a bit of harmless magic. They were warriors, used to facing their problems head on, but this was something they couldn't fight with weapons.

In the same room where Loki and Jack now hid behind a pillar, a group of them had gathered, no doubt in an attempt to find the cause and a solution.

"Wait a minute," one of them cried, their voice like one of those cartoon chipmunks Sophie liked. The group hushed itself to listen to them. "This has Loki's name written all over it. And that little winter spirit was probably in on it, too!"

There was a chorus of furious agreement.

"Let's find them and make them remove it!"

"But didn't they already leave for Midgard?"

"If I know Loki, he'd want to stick around and see the chaos he's caused. They're probably still around here somewhere!"

The conversation quickly divulged into a discussion about what they planned on doing as soon as they located the two culprits, each suggestion a little less harmless and little more violent than the last. Jack and Loki decided that now was probably a good time for them to make their escape.

They'd almost made it outside to freedom when they were caught. A brightly glowing Thor stood barring the doorway with his broad shoulders, arms crossed and a scowl on his face.

"Brother, Jokul, do not think I do not know you were the ones behind this," he said.

At the sound of his voice, all high and squeaky, Jack couldn't contain it anymore. He doubled over into peals of laughter, leaning heavily on the wall to keep himself upright. Loki didn't last much longer. Thor's frown deepened as he watched them break down into mirth at his expense. Then, slowly, the corners of his lips twitched upwards and he was joining them, the sound only making Jack laugh harder.

"I should have known you'd be up to something," Thor chuckled.

"You're not gonna dob us in, are you?" Jack asked, wiping a tear from his eye.

"And have father decide to ban you from Asgard permanently? Of course not! I want to hear more about your exploits with these Guardians of Childhood! But next time," he waved a stern finger in Jack's face, "include me in your schemes!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Jack, I recommend we leave now before they catch up to us," Loki said, glancing back over his shoulder.

"You are being followed?" Thor scanned the darkness.

"What did they say they wanted to do to us?"

"Uh, I believe it was something along the lines of cutting out our tongues and using us as pin cushions towards the end there," Jack ran a hand through his hair uncomfortably.

Thor chuckled. "Go, I will hold them off for you. Best you stay away for a while before visiting us again. And, brother, perhaps you might consider a vacation?"

Jack grinned, chasing down the hall after Loki as the first sounds of the mob started reaching them. "I think that's an excellent idea!"


	109. Keeping Balance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter brought to you by the letter P (for procrastination) and my tears because I am so tired my god. On that note I am so sorry for the delay - uni has been very demanding this semester. I've finished classes, which just leaves exams. So not sure when the next chapter will be out, but I'm aiming to get a Halloween one in if possible :)
> 
> Requested by kitty.0 like a million years ago (I'm so sorry)
> 
> Once again, shout-out to FrostedDragonHeart who helped me out with this chapter
> 
> Disclaimed

North had noticed very quickly that Jack had a rather... peculiar relationship with gravity. That is to say, for the most part, there wasn't one. It was as though no one had ever bothered to stop and tell the boy that gravity was a thing that existed. But, being a carefree winter spirit who rode the wind as easily as he breathed, that was probably for the best. As it was, though, North still found himself amazed every now and again by Jack's ability to maintain his balance on literally anything.

Such as right now, as he watched Jack standing tiptoe on _one foot_ on a very precariously stacked pile of odds and ends.

North stopped in the doorway to gawk. The very top of the stack (besides Jack himself) was an upturned bucket, which was resting on the end of a broom, resting against a chair, which itself was placed on a table half-mounted on a couch pulled out from the wall. In all, it made North very nervous just looking at it, but Jack didn't seem to have a care in the world for the concept of physics. At the very least, the pile should be wobbling – or _Jack_ should be wobbling – but, no, it was perfectly stable. And Jack didn't seem to realise that he was one lean in the wrong direction away from a potential broken bone.

But what was more shocking was that the scene existed at all. He was very obviously reaching for something (the rafter directly above him, if North were to hazard a guess), but the boy could _fly_. What on Earth was he doing?

"Jack," North hedged, doing his best to keep his voice low lest he startle his young friend and cause him to fall.

Jack turned his head in North's direction just long enough to say, "Hi, North," before his attention was once more consumed by... whatever it was he was doing.

"Jack," North tried again, "what are you doing?"

"I'm trying," Jack grunted, straining his arm up as far as it would go, "to reach the rafter."

Right. North had figured as much. But that didn't really explain anything. "Why?"

"Because the elves decided to play treasure hunting with me – without bothering to inform me, might I add – and thought my staff would make a good treasure. They didn't hide it very well but they sure did their best to make it hard to reach." Jack heaved a sigh, letting his arm drop. North thought he heard him mutter something akin to 'damn elves are gonna regret this' but decided he didn't really want to know.

Instead, he turned his gaze up to the rafter and, as Jack had said, it was quite obvious that the staff was up there. In all honesty, North wasn't sure how he'd managed to miss the hooked end sticking out over the side.

"Hey, pass me that lamp," Jack drew his attention.

North turned to the lamp in question. Knowing exactly what Jack was thinking, and a little bewildered, he went to do as he was bid. No doubt nothing would stop Jack until he got what he wanted, and North would prefer to be there just in case something went wrong.

* * *

_There's something really wrong with this kid_ , Bunny decided. Sure, he knew of people with freakish balance, and kids were naturally pretty fearless, but this was just ridiculous. That branch should not have been able to hold Jack's weight – light enough to be carried by the wind or not – let alone be wide enough for anything bigger than a bird to sit on.

Jack, apparently noticing his discomfort, smirked down at him from his perch on the scrawniest branch of the scrawniest tree in the whole damn Warren.

Bunny glared up at him.

Jack started bouncing the branch.

Bunny glared harder. He could just see it. Any second now that branch was going to give and Jack would fall. And Bunny would laugh because the idiot would have brought it on himself.

Jack, still grinning, rested the butt of his staff on the branch and jumped up to crouch on top of it. Bunny felt something in him snap.

"Would ya get out of the bloody tree?!"

Jack had the audacity to laugh. "What's the matter, Cottontail? You look a little nervous!" he called back down. "But I guess that's nothing new, right?"

"Nervous? Ha! I just don't want ya breaking my tree!"

"Relax, it's _fine_!" To prove his point, Jack bounced the branch a little more.

Reaching the end of his admittedly short patience, Bunny reached into his bandolier, pulled out an egg bomb, and hefted it at him. The look of shock on the brat's face was completely worth inadvertently dyeing the top of the tree purple.

 

* * *

 

While not overly common, it wasn't unusual for Sandy to run into Jack on his trips around the world. Well, more accurately, it wasn't unusual for Jack to run his hand through some dreamsand, attract Sandy's attention, and cause him to drift down for a quick hello. And, usually, he would find Jack standing somewhere that defied both physics and logic.

Honestly, how the boy managed to not only maintain his balance, but _run_ along a ledge wrapped around a skyscraper less than an inch wide was well beyond what Sandy could fathom. But, really, he shouldn't have expected any differently. This was hardly the most gravity-defying stunt Jack had ever pulled.

So Sandy kept the surprise from his face and grinned brightly at his much younger friend while Jack nattered happily on about the kids he'd played with that day, and the ones who'd been able to see him. After a few minutes, though, he knew he needed to keep moving – there were a lot of kids in the world who needed some good dreams. Sandy held a finger up to catch Jack's attention, and then pointed in the direction he intended on going.

Jack was barely fazed at all, well used to this sort of thing by now. As Sandy started drifting away, Jack leapt from his tiny platform to a powerline, running along it as easily as he had the ledge. He would follow Sandy as far as the edge of town before the two would go their separate ways; they both had work to do, after all.

"So, Sandy," Jack grinned, jumping off the powerline to drift lazily alongside the Sandman, "tell me about your day... or, err, night, I suppose. Any noteworthy dreams?"

Sandy chuckled silently to himself and proceeded to regale Jack with a very peculiar dream a girl over in Singapore had had about a donkey in high heels acting as a judge on a cooking show.

 

* * *

 

Ever since Pitch's attack and Jack's ascension to Guardianship, Tooth had taken it upon herself to be out in the field more. There were, of course, times when there was just too much to do and it was easier to remain at the palace to act as a control tower, but she didn't mind all too much; especially on the days Jack came to visit. The girls adored him, and he never grew impatient with them, always doting. Tooth adored him, too, but she at least maintained her composure now when he smiled. ...Most of the time.

"Hey, Tooth!" Jack grinned at her, coming to land on the floor of the platform Tooth was directing her fairies from. He was so covered in fairies his clothes might as well have been made from them, and his teeth practically glistened in the soft light of the Tooth Palace. Tooth resisted the urge to fly over and get a better look.

"Hello, Jack!" she beamed at him instead. She spared a second to hand out assignments to a group of returning fairies before turning back to him. She opened her mouth to ask how his day had been but paused when she spotted him walking around the circumference of the platform on the low, and very thin, railing, staff slung over his shoulders without a care in the world. Even with a swarm of fairies clinging to him and fluttering about he didn't even wobble on his route. She'd seen him perform more amazing acts of balance, of course, but nonetheless she was never not impressed.

"Alright, girls," she stifled a laugh. "Time to get back to work."

The fairies twittered sadly but didn't protest, lifting from Jack's form like a swarm of bees. Even then, with the load lightened, Jack didn't falter. But he did stop to reassure them that he would hang around until they were next on break. Baby Tooth smugly perched herself on his shoulder, now on her own break after having just come back from Norway.

Tooth smiled to herself at the sight and, after telling Jack to make himself at home, returned her attention to tooth collecting.

 

* * *

 

North, Bunny, Sandy, and Tooth sat around the fireplace in the Globe Room, each with a beverage in hand and a plate of cookies on a table between them to share. For once, it wasn't a meeting that had them gathered, merely a chance to take a break from work and to enjoy each other's company. They had been caught up in a story Sandy had been telling them when their attention had been drawn to the window as Jack (finally) arrived.

Their youngest Guardian easily drifted down into the room, spring-boarding off several railings and ledges before landing silently on the back of the chair left vacant for him, where he crouched, grinning at them. It was a testament to how used to his freakish neglecting of physics they'd gotten that none of them so much as batted an eye at the display.

"Sorry I'm late," he said by way of greeting, "blizzard in Moscow was getting a little out of hand." Reaching out with his staff, he lightly tapped one of the cookies on the plate, freezing it to the tip. He managed to get it halfway back to him before Tooth broke it off and glared at him.

"Do you know how much sugar is in these things?" she scolded, waving the cookie at him as she did so.

Jack had the decency to look sheepish. Satisfied, Tooth turned back to her cup of tea, and Jack subtly accepted the replacement cookie sneakily pressed into his hand by North on his other side. Jack shoved the whole thing in his mouth before Tooth could notice and masked his chewing by taking a gulp of the iced chocolate premade for him.

Tooth, as if sensing the deception, shot her head around to stare at them suspiciously but Jack and North held up their hands in defence, the picture of innocence. It was only when she'd turned back to Sandy to listen to (read?) the rest of the story that they dropped the display, North winking conspiratorially at Jack over his eggnog and Jack taking another sip of his own drink to stifle the bubbling laughter in his throat.


	110. Keeping Balance Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A follow-up chapter for the previous one, as requested by Mewgirl Anna

Jamie grinned as he spotted a familiar, blue-hoodie clad figure flitting from rooftops as he and his friends walked home from school. He wasn't the only one to notice, either, judging from Cupcake's excited exclamation of, "Is that Jack?"

In unspoken agreement, the group immediately took off running in the direction they'd seen Jack go. Surprisingly, it didn't take them long to catch up, but Jack didn't seem to have been in much of a hurry. He was leisurely walking along a thin fence railing, apparently not having noticed their presence on the other side of the road.

"How does he do that?" Monty asked, panting from their short sprint.

"I know right, I can barely walk on the _ground_ in a straight line," Claude added.

"Man, I don't know why you're all so surprised," Caleb laughed. "He's a _spirit_. He can _fly_ and make it snow whenever he wants! Something like this seems kinda anticlimactic, don't you think?"

Caleb had a point, Jamie mused. Jack didn't exactly adhere to logic. His disregard for gravity should have been the least surprising thing about him.

At that moment, Jack happened to glance in their direction – or maybe he'd simply heard them talking. A huge grin split his face as he closed the distance between them in a single bound. "Are my ears ringing?" he smirked.

"Oh, um, we were just talking about how you're really good at balancing on stuff," Pippa confessed when no one else said anything, cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

Luckily, Jack didn't seem fussed in the least. "I wasn't always this balanced," he told her. "When I first started out as Jack Frost I could barely land without falling over!"

"So wait, we could get as good as you if we practice?" Cupcake asked.

Jack shrugged. "I've had a few hundred years to get this good but I don't see why not." He paused for a moment, his brows tilting into a light frown. "Don't go trying anything unless you've got adult supervision."

"You're adult supervision, right?" Jamie asked.

"Technically, no."

In response, Jamie pulled his best puppy-dog face; the one he knew Jack was unable to say no to. And, just as he'd hoped, Jack caved within seconds.

 

* * *

 

Something was going on in his lair. Pitch didn't need to leave the dark sanctuary of his personal room to know. And he had a very bad feeling he knew exactly what it was.

Or, rather, _who._

A quick step through the shadows brought him to the main chamber, where he sensed the chaos was coming from. It took less than a second to find the source, but significantly longer to process it.

As he'd expected, Jack Frost had invited himself in _again_ , never mind that Pitch had gone to great lengths to hide the entrance. And just as they'd been instructed, the Nightmares had intercepted the intruder. What Pitch had not expected, though, was the lack of fear or malicious intent coming from either party. The Nightmares were chasing after Jack, snapping at his heels as he jumped from one back to another with a huge and thoroughly amused grin on his face, barely faltering as they tried to buck him off. Winter spirit or not, that he was able to maintain his balance without even holding onto anything was just plain ridiculous. But, more importantly, and more _irritatingly_ , the Nightmares seemed to be having just as much fun as Jack was.

Pitch's lip curled in disgust as he watched the scene playing out below him. How had it happened that his own Nightmares were so used to Jack Frost that they _played_ with him instead of dragging him out by the most painful means possible?

 _I am not dealing with this_ , Pitch decided, slinking once more into the darkness. He was going to have to dish out some serious A-grade Nightmares to feel sane again.

 

* * *

 

Jack followed Lleu deep into autumn, all the way from North's Workshop, where the latter had tracked him down with claims that there was something important Jack was needed for, to the south eastern end of Australia, where they finally came in to land at some sort of show ground where a series of brightly coloured tents were set up. The only light in the space came from two large spotlights set up near the largest of the tents, but it was enough for Jack to identify it as a circus, and one that had been closed for the night from the looks of things. It was just the right level of creepy that Jack stayed on high alert.

"Through here," Lleu instructed, lifting the bottom of the tent just high enough for someone to crawl through.

Jack eyed the opening of the tent dubiously. "Isn't this illegal?"

"Psh," Lleu waved flippantly. "Can't get arrested if you don't exist."

Well, it was kind of hard to argue with that, Jack supposed, and he slipped under the canvas. Lleu followed after him without hesitation. Predictably, it was too dark inside to see anything. Jack kept his staff at the ready, half expecting something to jump out at him.

"What are we doing here?" Jack whispered. Was there some sort of hostile spirit that needed relocating?

"It's a surprise," Lleu returned, a smile in his tone. "Lights!"

At his call, several lights flicked on around the tent. Jack squinted his eyes shut, one hand raised in an attempt to shield himself from the blinding. When he dared to open them again, it was to find a full circus set-up, complete with all manner of equipment. Sitting on the edge of a trampoline was none other than May Queen, and Ceres moved over to join them from where she'd been standing by one of the lights. Both women had forgone their usual attire in favour of pants.

Jack blinked at the three of them, uncomprehending. Finally, he found his voice again. "Is this an intervention?"

"Um, no, it's a circus," Lleu rolled his eyes. Ignoring May's irritation, he jumped up onto the trampoline and used the momentum it gave him (and a light breeze) to flip up onto the trapeze. "As the Guardian of Fun, how could I _not_ invite you?"

"This was the important thing you needed me for?"

"It _is_ important!"

Jack was as touched as he was annoyed. He'd thought something serious had happened. "Let me guess," he turned to May and Ceres, who had yet to move, "he dragged you here, too?"

"He dragged me," May said, holding up a hand. "Ceres was the one who found this place."

Wait, _Ceres_ was the instigator this time? Jack turned an incredulous stare on her.

Ceres sniffed disdainfully and stared him down. ""It's no gladiatorial event but circuses can be enjoyable."

"May, get up here and be an acrobat with me!" Lleu called from above them. While they'd been talking, he'd shifted so that he was dangling upside down, arms stretched out towards May as if he could grab her from all the way up there. May rolled her eyes but complied, using the trampoline the same way Lleu had.

Jack let his gaze drift back to Ceres, who had taken the opportunity to hop up onto one of the large rubber balls littered around the ring. "Come on, Frost," she smiled maliciously. "Let's see how good your balance is."

"I want in on that!" Lleu gasped, hurling himself off the trapeze. May, who had just gotten up there, scowled at him. She grumbled something under her breath before drifting down to join them on a ball of her own, albeit a little more shakily than the other two.

Jack shook his head at them in exasperated amusement as he found his own. He'd barely gotten used to the movement before Ceres slammed her ball into his.

"What is this, circus bumper cars?" Jack asked, easily correcting himself.

"Last one standing wins," Ceres said, changing trajectory to come at him again.

Jack quickly rolled out of the way, only to slam into May, who wobbled precariously for a moment before managing to right herself. And so it went, the four of them against each other, occasionally forming alliances and ganging up on someone. Within ten minutes, even May was laughing as she careened into Lleu with enough force that one of his flip-flops went flying off and hit Ceres in the head, who then went on the attack with renewed vigour. It would be almost an hour before one of them finally fell.


	111. Losing Balance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand another follow-up of Keeping Balance, at the request of Zyenna

Jack allowed the wind to drop him carefully through the open window of the Workshop's Globe Room. He had intended to land on the Globe itself and then bounce off that to the floor. Which was more or less how it went, except instead of bouncing it was more like slipping, and instead of landing nimbly on the floor he fell through the gap and plummeted to the level below. Luckily, his fall was broken by one of the workstations. Unluckily, it was a work station for plastic toy robots.

Jack groaned as the pain from the impact registered and the pile of plastic beneath him dug into his chest sharply. For a few very long moments he couldn't even bring himself to peel his face off the bench. He was vaguely aware of yetis crying out around him – whether in annoyance or concern, Jack didn't know – but it was hard to hear anything through the headache pounding at his skull.

"Jack!"

Jack suddenly found himself hauled up from where he was sprawled. His vision swam with the movement and he slammed his eyes shut to stave off a rising bought of nausea.

"Jack, are you alright?"

Jack blinked a few times as his vision slowly returned to focus. North was towering over him, his grip on his arm the only thing stopping Jack from sliding down to the floor. Man, he was dizzy. "Hi, North."

"Are you alright?" North repeated.

"Ah, yeah," Jack pulled himself free, leaning heavily on the workbench, and rubbed his forehead. "Just slipped."

North, if anything, seemed even more surprised than before. "Slipped?" he parroted.

"Yeah, off the Globe."

"You slipped off the Globe?"

Had he not just said that? Maybe he was mumbling. "Um, listen," he began, deciding to change the subject, "I was just dropping in to..." Hmm. Why _had_ he decided to come to the Workshop? He was sure there had been a reason when he'd set off, but it was eluding him now.

Belatedly, he realised North was staring at him in concern. "Are you sure you are alright?"

Jack's headache panged, reminding him that the answer to that question was probably closer to 'no'. "Just a headache," he reassured nonetheless. Said headache was more likely to be a slight concussion but North didn't need to know that. "I hit my head."

North crossed his arms and scowled, but he didn't look angry. "You must have hit it very hard."

"Yeah. I let my guard down," Jack confessed. He certainly wouldn't be doing that again.

North's frown shifted into mild surprise and his arms dropped. "You were attacked?"

"Sorta? I instigated it this time."

North looked like he had more to say, but was uncertain how to go about it. Eventually, he settled on, "Come, we take you to sick bay and you can tell me from beginning."

Before Jack could say anything in protest, a large hand was pressed to his back and he found himself being herded towards the elevator. It honestly wasn't necessary – he could just sleep it off – but he'd learned the hard way that there was no arguing with North when he had his mind set on something.

It wasn't until Jack was sitting on the edge of a bed with a yeti in a nurse's hat fussing over him that North prompted for a better explanation.

"Now, Jack, tell me what happened."

"Ah, just Lamia up to her old tricks again," Jack shrugged. It really wasn't a big deal. And after each time he soundly beat her she usually laid low for a year or so before trying any child-eating again. Though maybe that was just because that was how long it took the ice to melt. Who knows? "I wasn't paying attention to her tail and she whacked me into a rock."

North seemed startled by the confession. "Lamia?!"

"Yeah, you know, the half-woman half-snake lady? Likes to eat kids?"

"Yes, I know of Lamia. But we had thought her no longer a problem to the children!"

Jack raised a brow, gratefully accepting the ice pack handed to him by the nurse yeti. "Why would you think that?"

"She has not surfaced for many years, my friend."

This only made Jack more confused. "She's been going after kids for as long as I've known of her," he countered. "Longer, even. I just freeze her solid and when she thaws out I do it again."

North looked thoughtful. "This would explain our ignorance. You have been upholding duties of Guardianship before Manny even brought you to us!" he beamed. "Now that we know, though, you do not need to fight her by yourself. Your fellow Guardians would be happy to assist, and perhaps we can find a more permanent solution to dealing with her, no?"

Jack, desperately wanting to just go and curl up outside in the snow, didn't bother pointing out that he'd been doing fine for over a century and didn't really need the assistance, instead nodding in agreement. It seemed to satisfy North, though, and when Jack was finally released by the nurse the older spirit escorted him to his room, where Jack was pleased to find the window had been left open and a considerable pile-up of snow was waiting for him.


	112. Out of Hand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh I'm sorry this is ridiculously late and I'm sorry that it's not great, but I had a really hard time working on it (shout out to HeavensLuminousArc for helping me come up with an idea), and I'm tired and just really done with it now so yeah
> 
> I hope everyone had a happy Halloween!

Tooth was so tense that she had long since forgone sitting on the edge of her seat and was instead hovering just above it. Beside her, Sandy was wide-eyed, more awake than he rarely ever was. The twitching of Bunny's ears was the only sign of his own unease (and irritation), while North bore an expression that was somewhere between amused, horrified, and incredulous. Jack, however, was more annoyed than anything.

"Are you serious?!" he cried, gesturing widely. "Are you _actually_ stupid?!"

"They can't hear ya, mate," Bunny rolled his eyes.

On the TV, the group of teenagers had decided to split up into two groups. The camera followed one of the groups as they made their way deeper into the overly creepy house, the music picking up with each step they took. They opened the first door they came across, revealing a set of rickety wooden stairs leading downwards, and they decided that was the perfect direction to go.

"Yeah, sure, the basement is the perfect place to go in a horror movie," Jack mumbled. Bunny gave him a look, but it seemed pretty clear that he shared the sentiment.

When the inevitable jump scare revealed itself, Tooth startled so badly she ended up closer to the ceiling than she was to the floor. Bunny and Sandy flinched, and even North seemed a little startled, even though they'd all been expecting it. Jack would never admit it but he'd jumped too – it was a bit hard not to – but the movie was so predictable! It wasn't even decent horror; it was just a compilation of stupidity, jump scares, and gore. Why they were even watching it, he'd never know; it wasn't exactly the sort of thing the Guardians usually invested themselves in. But, then, perhaps they were making an effort because it was Halloween.

It took far longer to reach the end of the movie than Jack would have liked, and when they did he certainly wasn't the only one relieved.

"Can we maybe pick a more family friendly movie next time?" Tooth asked, trying to calm her mini fairies, who hadn't coped well with the scarier parts.

"Yes, I am thinking this is good idea," North agreed.

"And preferably something less predictable," Jack threw in.

"Come, Jack, surely even you were bit frightened."

"Startled, sure, but it's a bit hard to be freaked out by CGI ghosts and Hollywood gore when you've been to as many of Jack-O-Lantern's Halloween parties as I have. And that stuff's _real._ "

"Yeah, but the ones at the party aren't out to get ya," Bunny pointed out.

"Most of them are pretty nice when you get to know them," Jack shrugged, starting towards the door. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go make a snack."

"Make it a healthy one!" Tooth called after him. Jack waved in acknowledgement, but whether it was merely that or an agreement was impossible to tell.

Bunny shook his head. "There's no way he wouldn't get spooked if that cheap-o Hollywood stuff was real."

Sandy suddenly raised his hand, drifting upwards to get the others' attention. The others stared at him as he sped through his thoughts.

"That's a bit mean, don't you think?" Tooth admonished.

"Ah, come on, it's harmless fun," Bunny grinned. "What do ya think, North?"

North stroked his chin in thought. "I think, if we are careful to only give little scare, and not go too far, there is no harm, no? Jack certainly had no trouble making up his mind when Jack-O-Lantern paid us a visit a few years ago."

"There, Tooth, see?"

Tooth heaved a resigned sigh. "Alright," she relented. "But we go easy on him, okay?"

"Do not worry, Toothy," North said. "I have idea!"

 

* * *

 

Jack rummaged through North's considerably large freezer in search of ice cream to put with the candy Jamie had given him earlier that night. Tooth would probably have a heart attack, but if he promised to brush well afterwards he could probably get away with it.

It wasn't long before he spotted the tub of vanilla wedged between a turkey and a bag of frozen peas, and he pulled it out, using his heel to shut the door behind him as he turned back to the bench where he'd left his haul. And paused.

Sitting beside the bowl he'd already gotten out was an old fashioned porcelain doll.

"Where'd you come from?" he asked.

The doll, predictably, didn't say anything. Jack side-eyed it as he scooped ice cream into his bowl, and then added an excessive amount of chocolate. When he was satisfied, he picked up the bowl in one hand and reached for the doll with the other, only to find it had somehow moved further down the bench.

Jack stared at it for a long moment. Had he accidentally moved it while he was scooping? Probably. Shrugging the mystery off, he grabbed it and headed back towards the main production centre of the Workshop. One of the elves had probably snatched it from a workstation. He'd just put it back on his way back to the Globe Room.

He didn't see any similar looking dolls on his trip through the Workshop, but there were some ragdolls. Jack placed the porcelain doll with them. The yetis would know where it came from, surely.

"I'm back!" Jack called as he re-entered the Globe Room. His voice trailed off, though, when he realised the other Guardians were no longer there. _Probably went for a bathroom break or something_ , he concluded, flopping back down in his seat and taking a bite of his ice cream.

He almost choked when he looked over to the seat next to him to find the porcelain doll staring at him. Carefully, Jack put his bowl down on the floor, never once taking his eyes off the doll. He was positive he'd left it in the Workshop, so how on Earth had it managed to get all the way here?

Unless...

Testing a theory, Jack turned away to stare absently at the Globe of Belief. After counting to ten in his head, he turned back to the doll. Just as he'd suspected, it had moved. He lowered himself down on the couch in front of it so their eyes were level. It did look like a regular doll – a bit creepy but otherwise ordinary. But looks could be deceiving.

"Is there a spirit hiding in there?" he asked.

The doll said nothing.

"If you're stuck, North'd probably have a better idea of how to get you out than me."

When even this failed to earn him any sort of result, Jack shrugged. "Well let me know if there's anything I can do to help," he said, stooping to reclaim his dessert. When he straightened again, the doll was so close to him it was nearly on top of him, one hand stretched out. Jack stared down at it, brow furrowed. He glanced down to the hand, then to his ice cream, then back to the hand, and finally to the doll's face.

"You want ice cream?" he guessed. Which was fair, because ice cream was great and here Jack was, rudely eating in front of it without bothering to offer it any. And he _had_ found the thing sitting beside his bowl when he'd been getting himself some. "Okay, I'll be right back."

Behind a tapestry on the far side of the room, the Guardians watched Jack leave in frustration.

"I cannot believe idea did not work," North said, disappointed. He'd thought the creepy animated doll would be perfect.

"Nice try, mate," Bunny smirked.

"Okay, I've got one," Tooth piped up. "Give me ten minutes to set it up."

 

* * *

 

"Sweet Tooth!"

Jack paused on his trip back towards the Globe Room, bowl of ice cream resting in one hand. Tooth flew towards him from the other end of the room. She seemed a little fidgety but otherwise fine enough that Jack didn't immediately conclude something was wrong.

"Hey, Tooth, what's up?" he smiled at her.

Tooth forcefully looked away from his teeth, shaking her head to stay focused. "Could you do me a favour?"

Jack raised a brow. Tooth normally didn't ask for favours, and even less often from him. "Sure, what is it?"

"Could you run down to the store room and grab a towel or something? Sandy accidentally spilled some eggnog and North wants to clean it up before the elves start licking the floor."

"No problem," Jack reassured her. He glanced down at the ice cream. If he took it with him it'd melt before he got it back to the doll. "Hey, could you take this to the Globe Room? There's a doll on the couch who wanted it."

Tooth accepted the bowl with a strange look on her face. Jack, already riding a draft towards the store room, called back that it was probably better not to ask.

It took only a few seconds and a quick stop to ask for directions to reach the storage closet in the washroom where the towels and linen were kept. The closet, Jack soon discovered, was more like a room, with shelves lining every wall and even some free-standing shelves, though he couldn't see more than what the washroom lights illuminated; he didn't intend to be more than a few seconds and so didn't bother with trying to find a light switch. Who knew they needed so much linen?

Uncertain how big the spill was, Jack settled on just grabbing a couple of different sized towels; if he got too many, well, it was better than too few. The shelf immediately to his left held what looked like an assortment of bed sheets, which North would probably not want to be soaked with eggnog. Jack ventured a little further in, using the glow of his staff to see. Finally, he found some handtowels on one of the free-standing shelves and grabbed the first three off the pile. That would be enough, right?

He turned, ready to fly back to... wherever it was Sandy had spilled the eggnog, but stuttered to a halt when he ran straight into a bed sheet. He quickly took two steps backwards and flew around it – it had probably just slid off the shelf or something. He could come back and put it away properly once the floorboards were no longer at risk of elf mopping.

As the door clicked shut, a small swarm of mini fairies phased through the sheet, chirping in disappointment.

 

* * *

 

"Really, Tooth, a floating bed sheet?" Bunny deadpanned.

The fairies had rendezvoused with them in North's office, bearing the news of their failed attempt at spooking Jack; after, of course, they'd created and then cleaned up a spill in the Globe Room. Sandy still wasn't happy about being blamed.

"Have you got a better idea?" Tooth challenged.

"Good old fashioned jump-scare ought to do it," Bunny replied, cracking his knuckles. "Just you watch."

 

* * *

 

Jack was on his way back from the washroom, where he'd left the soiled towels with the yetis, when the lights went out. He paused mid-stride, staring up at the ceiling even though he couldn't see anything. Had the globes died? He should probably let someone know so it could get fixed before someone (the elves) got themselves into trouble.

Thankfully, he was close to a stairway that would lead him up to the main part of the Workshop. Resorting to hovering on a draft just above the steps (didn't want to trip or fly into anything), Jack zoomed up a couple of flights in mere seconds.

He rounded the corner of the last flight before the Workshop. Out of seemingly nowhere, something large jumped out from behind the bend, yelling like a banshee. Jack startled badly enough that he dropped down to his feet, but his instincts were already kicking in. With one swing of his staff, he hit the thing full-on, coating it with ice. There was a loud cry and the sound of something falling over the side of the railing, and then silence returned.

Jack leaned on the banister, trying to peer into the dim below to see what he'd hit, but it was too dark to see anything. What the heck had that been? A yeti? He'd have to go check it out after he reported the blackout to North. If it _had_ been a yeti, Jack really hoped it wasn't too badly hurt by his attack.

 

* * *

 

Bunny groaned. He was lying on his back on the floor of the lowest level of the Pole, frozen stiff and in a fair deal of pain. That had not gone as planned. It certainly didn't help that his fellow Guardians, after making sure there was no lasting damage, had resorted to teasing him.

"'Just you watch', huh?" Tooth giggled.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," Bunny rolled his eyes – one of the few things he could still actually move. "At least he acknowledged my attempt."

"He is proving difficult to scare, no?" North said, stooping to lift Bunny off the ground. It was going to take a little while in front of the fire to thaw him out. Bunny, for his part, didn't protest about being carried too much, eagre as he was to regain feeling in his body.

In the corner of his eye, Bunny saw a flare of gold – Sandy, he suspected.

"Yes, Sandy, I think you have your work cut out for you," North replied to whatever had been said. "You have idea? Then good luck, my friend."

 

* * *

 

Once again, there was no one in the Globe Room. Jack frowned to himself as he scanned the space, but apart from the odd elf or two, the other Guardians were nowhere to be seen. Just where had they disappeared to? Ever since the movie had finished they'd been rather hard to track down. How was he supposed to report the broken lights if he had no one to report to? Maybe he should try finding Phil.

As it turned out, Phil was on his break, and Jack's search and the directions he'd been given led him back through the section of the Pole with the light problem. Except the light problem appeared to have been fixed. All the lights were working fine, and it was like they'd never gone off to begin with.

"Hunh," Jack said. Maybe someone had just turned off the light without realising he was in there? Though since when were the lights in the Pole ever turned off? Well, Jack supposed, it didn't really matter anyway; the lights were working and that was that. Which also meant he could now go investigate whatever it was that had jumped out at him.

Jack retraced his steps up the stairwell until he reached the point he was fairly sure the attack had happened. Then, sparing a look downwards, he vaulted over the railing, freefalling until he was just a few metres from the ground and then having the wind soften his landing.

There were a few ice crystals on the floor, but no sign of a body. Whatever it was must have recovered from the blow and run off. Hopefully it was just a yeti and not some sort of monster or they were going to have a problem on their hands. There were no noticeable tracks of ice or footsteps, so he had no way of knowing which way it had gone. Resolving to keep an eye out, Jack let the wind lift him back up to the higher levels of the Workshop.

Or, rather, he would have, if he hadn't spotted something lying on the ground not far off from where he'd spotted the fragments of ice.

Cautiously, Jack descended back down and crept towards it, staff at the ready. It wasn't until he was within a few metres of it that he realised what it was.

"Oh," Jack said, letting his staff drop down to his side. "That's unfortunate."

There was a corpse sprawled across the floorboards. And a fair bit of blood.

"Man, I _really_ hope I wasn't responsible for this," Jack muttered, using the end of his staff to roll the body over. Cause of death didn't look to be gravity, and there wasn't any ice nearby. Not to mention the time of death would have had to have been a while ago from the looks of things, so Jack liked his chances of being innocent.

But that didn't answer the question as to why there was a body here.

There was something... off about this corpse, though. Jack had seen his fair share of dead people at Jack-O's parties (and whenever he'd seen his own reflection, to be perfectly honest), but none of them looked quite as... well, plastic, to put it bluntly. Now suspicious, Jack leaned closer and examined the face. That really didn't look like real flesh.

"Wait a second," he said, nudging the body with his foot. "This is a dummy!" But why would someone leave a fake corpse on the bottom floor of the Workshop? Was it because it was Halloween? Wait, was this what had jumped out at him? Someone trying to scare him, maybe?

Jack shook his head. It was going to take a lot more than a fake corpse to spook him.

 

* * *

 

This was getting ridiculous. They'd tried four different things and still the closest Jack had come to getting scared was when he'd whacked Bunny in the face and froze him stiff. Which, by the way, Bunny was still irritated about.

"There's gotta be somethin' we haven't tried," Bunny said, slamming a fist into his hand as he paced back and forth in front of the fire. And maybe he was more seeking revenge for the freezing now than he was about proving a point but still. He paused, ears flicking upright. "I have an idea. Sandy, I'm gonna need to borrow your corpse."

After trying and failing to find any of the Guardians, Jack had eventually decided to just give up and wait in the Globe Room. Surely they would turn up eventually. His theory proved itself correct when, barely five minutes after he'd sat down (and noticed that the doll was gone – ice cream untouched), the door opened and Bunny stuck his head into the room.

"Where have you been?" Jack asked, tilting his head over the back of the couch.

"Never mind that, mate. Got somethin' to show ya," Bunny replied, gesturing for Jack to follow before ducking back out of view.

Jack raised an inquisitive brow as he pushed himself back to his feet and followed.

The 'something' turned out to be a wardrobe in one of the guestrooms. The other Guardians were already waiting there, and they smiled warmly when Jack and Bunny entered. Jack, however, struggled to make sense of what he was seeing.

" _This_ is where you guys have been? Staring at a wardrobe?" he asked incredulously.

"It's not just a wardrobe, mate," Bunny smirked. He walked over to it and opened one of the doors. "Stand in it and see for yourself."

Jack eyed the wardrobe warily. It looked pretty cramped with all those coats. Not to mention ordinary. "Um, no thanks."

Bunny rolled his eyes. "It's not gonna bite ya," he said, stepping in between a couple of coats to prove his point.

"Why do you even want me to? What's so special about a wardrobe?"

Bunny stepped out and gestured to the wardrobe in question. "See for yourself."

Uncomfortable and suspicious but curious nonetheless, Jack slowly made his way over to the wardrobe. He paused just in front of it and cast a look back at the Guardians, who nodded back at him reassuringly. Then, mentally shrugging, he stepped inside.

Nothing happened. "I don't see wh–"

His words caught in his throat as his staff was suddenly snatched from his hand and the wardrobe door slammed shut. Something heavy and humanoid shaped fell on him, along with several smaller things but Jack barely noticed, too busy banging on the door.

"Okay, very funny, let me out!" he called, shoving what he quickly realised was the fake corpse from earlier off to the side (that answered that mystery, then). When there was no immediate response, he pounded on the door a little louder. "Bunny! Seriously, let me out!"

Could they even hear him? Were they even still there? Jack, feeling panic starting to bubble up in his chest, rammed his shoulder into the door. It didn't budge. He tried to take a step back but was immediately met with a wall of coats and the back of the wardrobe. He was trapped in a small wooden box in the dark. With a (fake) corpse.

Was this what it was like to be in a coffin?

Jack regretted the thought as soon as it crossed his mind. His attempts at freeing himself increased in fervour, until he couldn't even hear his own voice practically begging them to let him out over the sound of his fists slamming against the wood.

"Alright, mate, calm down!" Bunny's voice reached him and Jack immediately stilled, breathing heavily. There was a few muffled sounds and the door jolted as Bunny tugged on it, but it otherwise remained shut. There were a few more attempts before Bunny, it seemed, gave up. "Jack, I think ya might've frozen it shut," came Bunny's hesitant voice.

Oh, god, he was going to be trapped in there until it thawed. And, with him so close to it, that could take _hours,_ if it even melted at all.

"Do not worry, Jack," North said. "We will get you out."

"Why the heck did you decide it would be a good idea to trap me in here at all?!" Jack yelled back, letting his fist hit the door again, this time in frustration.

"We were trying to scare ya," Bunny confessed. "Ya said ya weren't scared of cheap tricks and we wanted to prove ya wrong."

"Well mission successful!" Jack bit out. He could feel himself shaking. "I'm really not okay in here!"

There was a dull popping sound, and the next thing Jack knew, there was a warm, small body pressed against the side of his neck. The owner of said body chirped up at him reassuringly.

"Baby Tooth?" Jack asked quietly.

The was an affirming twitter and Jack let out a relieved breath. It wasn't quite so bad with her there to ground him, but he was still far from comfortable and he was definitely not calm.

"Get as far away from door as you can, Jack," North instructed.

One hand absently stroking Baby Tooth, Jack moved until his back was pressed against the opposite side of the wardrobe. The door shuddered violently and the wood groaned under stress. Then, barely a second later, the hinges snapped and the whole door fell forwards, where it clattered loudly against the floor, revealing North wielding a crowbar on the other side.

Jack didn't dawdle. Light had barely filtered into the small space before he leapt out, one hand pressed to his chest as he snatched his staff from Sandy. Small plastic spiders covered in frost tumbled from his clothes.

" _Never_ do that again," he growled, brushing off the ones that still clung to him.

"We're sorry, Jack," Tooth said sadly. The others nodded in solemn agreement. "We didn't mean for it to get so out of hand."

Jack nodded, too. It was obvious they were sincere. But he was still running on adrenaline. "I'm gonna... go get some air. I'll be back," he said, taking relief from the wind that picked up around him and carried him out through the hallways. He'd come back when he no longer felt like he was suffocating.


	113. Fractured

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my dears! Before you read this chap (or afterwards, if you prefer), I have an announcement: Chapter 200 will be the last one shot for this series. It was a hard decision for me to make, and it was one I mulled over for a long while, but I think it's right. This fic has grown so much larger than I thought it ever would, and for the past few years I've been putting as much energy into it as I found myself able to, and I just want to thank all of you for that :)
> 
> So, there are 15 requests still left on my list. After I get through them, I'm going to reopen requests again, but once we reach 200 chapters, that'll be it.
> 
> This chapter was requested by a number of people, including but not necessarily limited to oceanlights, BlackBandit111, and Fenrir Wylde Razgriz

Besides his initial awakening within the pond in Burgess, Jack's earliest memories had been of fun. He'd been enthralled with the way he'd been able to create beautiful fern-patterned frost with a mere tap of his staff. And then, as he went through his first year as a spirit, he'd discovered how much fun his element could be: snowball fights, sledding, building snowmen, it was all so exciting and magical, and even more so when the kids he tried to interact with had as much fun as Jack himself did.

But, then, all good things had to come to an end, right?

He was only two years old. By that understanding, he was _younger_ than the kids he played with. And yet, as he stared in horror at the sight laid out before him, he'd never felt so old.

The snow was piled up in heaps indiscriminately, perfect and unmarred by activity – human or otherwise. It would have almost been beautiful had it not been for what was poking out of it. Jack tried to tear his eyes away from the bodies but couldn't. He was stuck, helpless, staring in morbid fascination and repulsion. Even as he felt bile starting to rise in his throat he couldn't so much as close his eyes.

There were kids under all that snow. Adults, too, but it was the kids who really struck him deep. They must have gotten stuck out in the blizzard, unable to find shelter, and instead had tried to huddle together for warmth. But the ice and freezing wind had snatched any and all heat they'd had and now all that was left was this...

Jack shuddered, finally finding the strength to shut his eyes and clench his hands even as his feet still refused to obey him. This was _his_ fault. He'd started that blizzard so that the kids would have something to play in on the morrow. _He_ had killed them. He hadn't meant to, but he'd done it anyway.

Jack felt the wind start to pick up around him. Unwilling and unable to seek comfort from his partner in crime, he turned his face away, feeling like any second he would break. Why hadn't he checked? Why hadn't he made sure there was no one left out in the cold before he'd started that storm? What had happened to that light, fun winter magic that had so enraptured him?

A warm hand was placed on his shoulder and Jack startled, pulling away and spinning around before he'd even realised what had happened. Mother Nature didn't try to stop him, didn't flinch. She was calm, composed, and every bit as ethereally beautiful as she'd been when he'd seen her for the first time about a month after he'd been born. Jack felt his shoulders slacken, and the end of his stuff dug into the hateful snow.

"Mother Nature," he forced his tongue to work, more out of respect for her than any real desire to speak.

"Jack Frost," she returned. Her eyes strayed to the bodies for a long moment before returning focus on him. "I knew this would happen eventually."

Jack felt his heart pang at her words. She'd known? She'd known that he would screw up this badly? Had she been waiting for it? Did she hate him as much as he hated himself?

"Let's take a walk," she said, and Jack glanced up at her in time to see her hold out her hand towards him. Hesitantly, he reached out and, hand in hand, she began to lead him away from the site.

For a long while, neither of them spoke. They simply wove their way through the trees, neither leaving any footprints in their wake. Jack didn't think they could be any more different. Mother Nature stood tall and proud. He, on the other hand, could barely find the strength to place one foot in front of the other.

Eventually, Mother Nature came to a halt at a small grove, and with a mere wave of her free hand, all the snow melted away. Grass grew from nothing, and somehow it seemed like the sun was shining brighter and warmer here than it was in the surrounding area. Without a word, she tugged him forwards and they sat together in this little haven of spring amidst the cruelty of winter. And even then she didn't release his hand.

"Do not forget this day, Jack," Mother Nature began. "It is an important lesson for you to learn, though a cruel way to teach it."

"I don't think I could, even if I wanted to," Jack admitted, voice a mere whisper. "I... It's all my fault, I–"

Mother Nature finally pried her hand free, only for it and her other one to rise and cup Jack's cheeks, forcing his gaze upwards until they were staring each other in the eye. "You are winter, Jack Frost," she said. "You are powerful and free and unrestrained. You are all that is good about this season, all that is fun and beautiful; a winter that this world needs."

Jack stared at her, not knowing where she was going with this but not daring to interrupt.

"But you must understand something," she continued. "You are winter, yes, but winter is not you."

Jack's brows furrowed. "I don't understand."

"There are two sides to winter, Jack. One is what you embody and what you have upheld and demonstrated over these last couple of years. The other is what you have seen today. _You_ have morals and a heart. _Winter_ does not. It is cold and unforgiving. It doesn't care who lives and who dies. This act that you have witnessed was done by winter, not by you."

"But I started the blizzard!" Jack cried, moving backwards so that she lost her grip on him. "If I had checked–"

"You started the blizzard," she agreed. Her hands fell lightly to her lap. "But what did you intend by it?"

"I... I just wanted the kids to be able to have fun."

"Then that is the difference. You would not have hurt those people willingly, and your intentions were pure. This event is not isolated, Jack. You will witness it again. But I want you to remember this: as long as you do all in your power to protect this world and its creatures, then you are never to blame for the atrocities this season commits in spite of your efforts."

"But if I'd just _checked_ –"

"Then that is what you have learned from this. In future, you should be aware of your surroundings, and know that your actions have consequences."

Jack felt something inside of him breaking. Tears welled in his eyes. How could she not see that he was to blame? How could she not hate him for this?

"It is alright to cry, Jack," Mother Nature smiled softly, holding her arms out invitingly.

Shoving aside his pride and the burning embarrassment, Jack allowed himself this one moment of weakness and let his body tilt until he was resting against her. Her arms encircled him and held him close as the first tears began to fall.

"I know that you blame yourself and that nothing I can say will change that, but I hope that in time you will find it within you to forgive yourself. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, even spirits," she whispered. "But it is just as important for us as it is for humans to learn from those mistakes and to not let them define us. Do you understand?"

Jack sniffled, mulling over all she'd said. He thought he understood, and he definitely had learned from it. He wouldn't be making any more spontaneous blizzards like this again, not without being absolutely certain that no one would get caught in the crossfire. Not trusting his voice, he nodded against her shoulder.

"Good."

They lapsed into silence after that, Mother Nature stroking his hair comfortingly and Jack falling to pieces in her arms. Finally, after what felt like centuries, Jack found the strength to start putting himself back together again.

"Thank you," he murmured, pulling away at last.

Mother Nature smiled at him. "You are my winter spirit. And not once have I ever regretted it. Do not forget this, but do not dwell on it, either."

"I'll try."

"That is all I ask."

She left him, then, after one more brief stroke of his hair, and Jack stared after her retreating form. He still felt grief coiled around his heart like a snake, but somehow he knew he would be alright now. There were too many kids out there who needed the fun his winter could bring for him to mourn the loss of these people forever. It would take a while, but he would eventually forgive himself. And in the meantime, he would do his best to ensure that his winter was one that would make both himself and Mother Nature proud.


	114. Spoon-Feeding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay this is later than I wanted but I won't bore you with excuses.
> 
> Requested first by silentshadow, but many times after that by various others. I'm sorry for the long wait, no I didn't forget, and I hope it meets expectations!
> 
> Disclaimed.

It took just over a month for Jack to notice. In that month, he'd visited each of the Guardians at least once, and each time they had welcomed him warmly as they usually did and invited him to join them for a meal. Now, to Jack, none of this was overly suspicious; he had a tendency to arrive around a mealtime, and the other Guardians needed to eat far more frequently than he did _._ But when he met up with Sandy over Norway in the middle of the night to find the little man with a full-on picnic basket full of food that he was very intent on sharing... well, it was hard to _not_ be suspicious.

Clearly, they hadn't forgotten about the whole 'not eating' thing.

Honestly, it was ridiculous. It wasn't like he was _starving_ himself. He just genuinely didn't need to eat more than once every couple of weeks. He'd realised it fairly quickly after that first night at the pond – he'd made himself sick by trying to keep a regular schedule of three meals a day (a habit that had transferred over from his human years) – and, really, it was just as well. There wasn't a lot of food on offer in the middle of winter.

But, for some reason, the Guardians simply refused to accept that.

And, so, when the time came for another Guardian meeting, Jack was fully prepared to fight off whatever they tried to shove down his throat this time.

He was not, however, prepared for the sight that greeted him when he landed in the Globe Room. As had been the norm for previous meetings, the Guardians had gathered around the fireplace on a number of couches and armchairs, with a table in the middle for a plate of cookies and their drinks. This time, however, it seemed North had forgone the usual milk and cookies affair and decided to go with milk and a mountain. Because that was definitely what it was. A complete mountain of food. There was so much of it, he'd had to use several serving towers just to fit it all on the table.

For a long moment, Jack simply hovered in the air and stared. This had to be a joke... right? There was no way they would take it this far. His mind, unbidden, reminded him of the shoe incident and answered that, yes, they really would take it this far. He seriously considered just turning around and flying off right then and there, but any plans of escape were dashed when North spotted him and waved him over with a hearty greeting.

Jack took a seat as far away from the food as he possibly could, which meant he was a little closer to the fire than he would have liked, but sacrifices had to be made. Desperate times and all that.

"Um, hello," he said. His smile was pained.

"Hello, Jack!" Tooth beamed at him. Bunny, on the other side of the table, nodded, and Sandy waved enthusiastically.

"So..." Jack glanced at the table, "uh, what's going on?"

"I thought instead of usual morning or afternoon tea we have proper meal together this time," North replied, looking very pleased with himself.

"That's... North, that's not a meal, that's a whole harvest." His human family had survived on less than that for an entire winter on more than one occasion. If he really thought about it, that mountain of food could probably feed the colonial village of Burgess for a month and still have some left over. They didn't really expect to eat it all, did they?

"Eat as much as you like!"

Sandy did not need any further encouragement. The words were barely out of North's mouth before he was starting to heap a plate full of a wide assortment of things, topped off with, of course, a glass of eggnog. North followed suit in much the same manner. He, like Sandy, had a black hole for a stomach.

Bunny and Tooth were considerably more picky and nowhere near as ravenous (though Jack suspected Sandy didn't need to eat at all and simply did because he enjoyed it), the former looking for vegetarian options and the latter seeking sugar-free.

Jack remained still, watching them all carefully and wondering how long it would take before they started hounding him. He wasn't hungry, and he had absolutely no intention of eating now.

Exactly thirty seconds later, Tooth smiled at him around her slice of watermelon and said, "You should try some of this, it's really juicy."

 _It begins_ , Jack mentally grimaced. "I'm good. I ate a few days ago with Sandy." Because, really, Sandy could be very pushy when he wanted to be. And Jack knew better than to upset him.

The smorgasbord paused as they all turned to stare at him. Jack shifted uncomfortably but refused to back down.

"What have ya eaten today, mate?" Bunny asked, putting down his plate of salad.

"Nothing," Jack shrugged. "I told you I ate the other day. Sandy can vouch for it."

"Jack, you must eat more! You are as thin as rake!" North cried.

"I don't need to eat that often!" Jack protested. "Just like Tooth barely needs to sleep, or you, for that matter!"

"Tooth and North aren't wastin' away, Frostbite," Bunny pointed out. Sandy, beside him, watched with silent intensity.

"I'm not _wasting away_ ," Jack rolled his eyes. "I could eat three meals a day and not put any weight on. And do you want to know why? Because the last time I tried to do that I threw up from overeating."

"But when you are half-starved–" North began but Jack quickly cut him off.

"What part of 'I don't need to eat that often' do you people not understand? This has nothing to do with being starved or not I just genuinely do not need to eat. It's just the way I am." Probably had something to do with not actually being alive (just like how he didn't really need to sleep, but he did that far more regularly than he ate), but he decided it would be in bad taste to mention that.

The Guardians shared a look that spoke volumes. Clearly, they were unconvinced. But he didn't want to make a big deal out of it, because that usually led to arguments and upsets and he was trying to see things from their point of view. He knew they were only doing it because they were worried about him, but it didn't make it any easier to deal with.

"Look," Jack sighed. "I know you're only trying to get me to eat more because you care, but trust me on this. I know my body better than you guys do."

Sandy held out a small dish of yoghurt, and North agreed, "Just eat little bit. Does not have to be a lot."

Jack heaved a sigh but relented. It wouldn't do any harm to have a little, and it was better to just accept the inevitable than to keep kicking up a fuss. But if they thought this was going to be a regular occurrence, then they had another thing coming.

 

* * *

 

As it turned out, it did become a regular occurrence, but only a fraction of the scale it had been. When Jack returned to the Pole a few weeks later, he had barely landed before a yeti handed him a plate of crackers and cheese, pointing very sternly and making it very clear exactly what it expected to happen.

Jack, rolling his eyes, replied, "Yes, _mom_ ," before disappearing around a corner. He ate maybe two of the crackers before slipping the rest of them to the elves, who were ecstatic by the offering. Jack had smugly handed the plate back five minutes later to a very pleased yeti. It was a win-win-win, really.

The other Guardians were a bit harder to dupe. There weren't any elves at the Warren or the Tooth Palace, and definitely none on Sandy's cloud of dreamsand. And it wasn't like he could just pawn the food off to the fairies, given the whole hive-mind thing they had going on. On the occasion that he went to the Palace and had some fruit forced upon him he was forced to eat it or 'save it for tonight'. There were too many witnesses.

Bunny was more manageable in that he wasn't quite as pushy. But he still offered food more often than not. Jack sometimes accepted it, sometimes didn't. He never ate it at the Warren, though, and Bunny never seemed to expect him to.

Jack never ran across Sandy with a picnic basket again, but on the odd occasion he had a lunchbox. Like with the others, he sometimes ate it and sometimes didn't. But what it all added up to was a rather large hoard of food he had no idea what to do with.

That is, until a thought struck him as he was flying over an impoverished region of India. It wasn't hard to leave small sacks of food where the kids would find them, and seeing their faces light up at the sight of them was definitely worth it. It was the perfect solution: the kids were happy, Jack was happy, and the Guardians were oblivious but happy in their ignorance. And if they ever found out? Well... Jack didn't think they'd be too mad.


	115. Happy Snoggletog!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As an apology for how long it's been since I last updated, here is the Christmas chapter (requested by SonYukiGoku'sSister (Sorry I wasn't able to include the portrait, but I got the yaknog in!) one, as per the request, is a slight crossover with HTTYD, so if you're not into that, feel free to skip it :3
> 
> Happy Holidays, everyone!
> 
> Oh, btw, Fenrir Wylde Razgriz had an interesting idea, so if you have any folk characters from your culture that you'd like to see included before the end of this series, send them through to me!

Jack hadn't been outside in almost two days. In fact, in that time he hadn't even left the substantial library in the Workshop. Normally, this would have been unheard of – as much as he loved checking out all the different sorts of books North kept, he still got bored or antsy from time to time and needed a quick flight around the world for a change of pace – but this wasn't a normal occasion.

He'd been perusing the biographical section of the library, looking for any names that stuck out to him, when he'd spotted a collection of leather-bound books, all relatively small compared to some of the others around them. They'd been rather plain looking where others were highly elaborate, and maybe it was this that had had him pausing to pull one off the shelf. The books had turned out to be a series of memoirs by a long-dead Viking called Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third. If the name alone hadn't been enough to pique his interest, then the first lines certainly had been: _There were dragons when I was a boy._

Jack had immediately been sceptical. Real dragons? Weren't they just a myth? But then he'd remembered his own dragon, and his and almost everyone he knew's status of being a myth, and had decided that it was probably plausible after all. So he'd read on... and on, and on, and on. And he was still there a day and a half later, curled up in a large armchair with a stack of books on the floor in front of him. He no longer cared whether the accounts were real or not; they were certainly fun to read.

This latest one, though, attracted his attention in a way none of the others had.

_'This is Berk, boasting the kind of balmy, fun-in-the-sun climate that will give you frostbite on your spleen.'_

Jack snorted. The sarcasm was palpable, but in all honesty it sounded like the sort of climate he would actually call fun.

 _'The one upside is our annual holiday_ ,' he continued reading. ' _We call it Snoggletog. Why we chose such a stupid name remains a mystery, but with the war long over, and dragons living among us, this year's Snoggletog promises to be one to remember.'_

As he continued reading, his narrator going into detail about one particular Snoggletog and the drama that had unfolded, Jack felt a slight suspicion growing in the back of his mind. The account gave no actual descriptions of what Snoggletog was about, its practices, or anything of the sort, but from what it did say, he couldn't help but wonder if this wasn't just an old Viking version of Christmas.

 _Well, there's one person who knows all things Christmas better than anybody,_ he realised. Jumping up, he placed the book pages-down on the armchair so he could easily find his place again later, and zoomed out of the library in search of North.

Despite the chaos the Workshop descended into as Christmas Eve approached, it didn't take long to find him; after all, there were only a handful of places within the Workshop he would be, and any yeti who had seen him were happy to point him in the right direction.

"Hey, North, are you busy?" Jack asked as he peeked his head through the doorway to North's office.

North, who had been going over a ridiculously long list (T _he_ List, probably), looked up at the sound of his voice, face splitting into a big smile. "Ah, Jack! Come in! Always will I have time for you."

Jack returned the smile and did as he was bid, moving over to hover beside the desk.

"Now, what is it I can do for you, my friend?"

In hindsight, maybe he should have thought to bring the book with him. Though if North didn't know it by name, it was unlikely he would know it by sight. "I have a question."

"Ask away!"

"I was reading a bunch of autobiographies by a Viking called Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, and–"

"Hiccup? Yes, his stories are very good, no? Such an exciting life he must have led! All I know of him comes from those books, but I will do my best to answer you," North said, setting aside The List to give Jack his full attention.

"I was wondering about Snoggletog, actually," Jack shrugged. "There's not a lot on it mentioned in the memoirs but I couldn't help but notice it sounds a lot like Christmas."

North raised his eyebrows in surprise at the unexpected question then nodded. "Is not surprising," he said. "Snoggletog was a variation of the Yule celebration, which later influenced Christmas. Much of the traditions are very similar, no?"

"Yak-nog," Jack chuckled. From Hiccup's description, it had been too gross to stomach, even for the sake of the loved one who had made it.

"Yak-nog," North agreed.

There was something else, though; something he couldn't quite wrap his head around. "The memoir mentioned Odin?"

"Ah, yes!" North clapped his hands together. "Hiccup lived before my time, yes? There was no Santa Claus for them to believe in yet. The Norsemen believed that on Solstice Eve Odin would leave children gifts in their boots – or helmets, according to the Snoggletog variant."

Jack stared at him. "Odin."

"Yes."

" _Odin._ As in, the intimidating guy with the eye patch who's hostile to those not from Asgard? _That_ Odin?"

North blinked. "Yes, that Odin. You have met him?"

"Briefly. I find it hard to believe he would give anyone a gift, let alone a bunch of humans." Then again, they were Vikings, who were probably pretty similar to Asgardians...

"Do not confuse myself with Odin, my friend," North chuckled. "I give gifts to the good children of the world, but Odin only gave to those who left hay for Sleipnir, the–"

"The flying eight-legged horse," Jack interrupted, smiling at the memory. "We've met." A thought occurred to him then, "That sounds similar to kids leaving carrots for the reindeer."

"Yes! Is exactly the same! Odin's Wild Ride eventually became me and my reindeer-drawn sleigh, you see?"

Jack nodded. He'd never really thought about where all these stories had come from, but it was interesting to learn how they had developed, especially when he knew or had met those directly involved. "Thanks, North," he got to his feet. "I'd better let you get back to that List."

"It will not check itself," North agreed solemnly. He reached for a cup of eggnog off to the side and took a long sip. "But you are always welcome, Jack, not matter how busy I may be. I trust you will be here for Christmas again this year?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," Jack grinned. This year he was going to eat less at Mother's place, though – no need to invite antagonism from the Guardians about his diet, or lack thereof. He was halfway out the door when he paused, a thought occurring to him. "Hey, North?" he turned back around.

North looked up at him expectantly.

"Do you think I could borrow those memoirs?"

There was a twinkle in North's eye that told Jack that he knew exactly what had made him ask. "Of course, Jack! So long as you and Jamie are careful – they are very old – you may keep them for as long as you like!"

Jack shook his head, unable to deny that showing them to Jamie had been exactly what he'd had planned. The kid would get a kick out of them to say the least. "We'll be careful!"

North nodded in a final sort of way and returned his attention to The List. Jack, taking his cue to leave, slipped out into the Globe Room and started making his way back to the library, detouring via a yeti to get a bag to carry the books in. Maybe this year as his Christmas gift to Jamie he would bring him to see North's library. Then again, if he did that he'd probably never be able to get him to leave.

 

* * *

 

It was exactly five seconds after Jack had explained the memoirs and the whole Yule-into-Christmas thing that Jamie had sat up straighter on his bed and asked, "Do you think Odin and Sleipnir still do the Wild Ride?"

Jack had had no response to that beyond, "I don't know", and after that Jamie had been very adamant that they see through what he believed to be the most important aspect of a very old and very much forgotten (by the world at large, at the very least) tradition. Which was why Jack had taken them to the nearest rural area to 'borrow' some hay, and they had then put said hay in a boot on the Bennett's front porch for Sleipnir on Solstice Eve.

It was a testament to how used to such behaviour Mrs Bennett must have been that at his mother's equally amused, exasperated, and confused question as to _why_ Jamie had put hay in his boot, Jamie had simply said 'for Sleipnir' and she'd nodded and left it at that.

In all honesty Jack hadn't expected much; if anything, he'd fully believed that when they checked the next morning they'd find the boot exactly where it was, still full of hay.

He was very surprised, then, when he was proven wrong.

"Cool!" Jamie crowed, struggling to heft a very ornate and very sharp battle-axe out of his boot. The hay was completely gone, and the saliva stains told them both exactly who was responsible for it. "They actually came!"

Jack stared, dumbfounded. He hadn't known what sort of presents Odin left for kids but really he shouldn't have been all that surprised. He was probably going to have to have a word with the guy about what things were and weren't appropriate to give to kids. But there was no way he was going to be able to get Jamie to part with it, especially when it came with the knowledge that it had been left there for him by an actual god.

"Hey, uh, just don't play with that, okay?" Jack shifted.

"Darn, there goes my holiday plans," Jamie replied sarcastically. Jack bumped him gently with his shoulder (hyperaware of the axe still in the kid's hands). Jamie bumped him back, but then froze, an expression of dawning horror taking over his amusement.

"What?" Jack hedged.

"How am I going to explain this to my mom?!"


	116. Child's Play

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, I don't know how but I finally managed to finish it! This one is a request from wololf. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> (Trivia is the Roman equivalent of Hecate)

In hindsight, practicing North's particular branch of magic without said man supervising probably wasn't the smartest thing Jack had ever done. He'd been warned that magic, if performed incorrectly, could have serious side-effects, but at the time he hadn't really given it much thought. Now, though, he was starting to wish he'd taken it a little more seriously.

"I can fix this," he declared to no one, resolutely ignoring the higher-pitched tone his voice had taken on; a side-effect of his latest screw-up. He was going to pretend it didn't exist for as long as he could. "And I definitely do not need to tell North."

Granted, North could probably fix the problem in under five minutes, but it was the reaction that Jack was dreading. He'd probably get teased, which was bad enough, but the additional hurt that Jack hadn't listened (again) and the guilt that would come from that was best left avoided if at all possible. What North didn't know couldn't hurt him, after all.

No, Jack had gotten himself into this mess, and he was very adamant that he would be the one to get himself out of it. Besides, how hard could it be to find a counter-spell to the one that had turned him into a six-year-old?

Evidently rather hard, as it turned out. It wasn't just the sheer task of finding the right spell that gave him trouble, either. The side-effects of his current condition were also taking their toll. For one, he was barely the height of Sandy now, which meant that his clothes were several sizes much too big. His hoodie practically drowned him, and no matter how many times he rolled up the sleeves, they still slipped down his arms and dragged along the floor. His pants weren't much better; he'd had to resort to poking a new hole in his belt just to keep them from falling down, and they, too, refused to stay rolled up for more than five seconds.

But the problems didn't stop there, oh no. To make matters worse, his depth perception, and, subsequently, his balance had been completely screwed up, and so he now found himself tripping over his own feet about as often as his far-too-long sleeves. And, to put the icing on the cake, there was his physical strength. Nothing to brag about normally, it had descended into near non-existence.

What this all added up to, then, was a rather difficult time in searching through the very large, and very heavy tomes that made up North's collection of magic books, especially when most of them now weighed more than he did, or the most promising ones were on the top shelf, well out of his reach.

Jack heaved a frustrated sigh (and he was starting to wonder if his physical appearance wasn't the only thing the spell had altered – his emotionality was starting to prove itself to be rather changeable), and struggled to close the last book that had been within his reach.

Hours of searching, and he was still no closer to a solution than he had been to begin with. It was time he faced the facts: he could either ask someone for help, or he could resign himself to the rest of eternity as a six-year-old. He liked six-year-olds. He didn't like being one of them.

"Still not going to North," he declared, crossing his arms (or trying to; his sleeves made it rather difficult). But North wasn't his only option, was he? Bunny knew a thing or two about magic, didn't he?

Jack stopped that thought before it could even fully take root in his mind. If he went to Bunny, it would be the absolute end of whatever was left of his dignity. Bunny would never, _ever_ let him live it down. No, he couldn't go to Bunny.

What about Tooth? Surely she knew something about magic? But she'd fuss over him and her mother-mode would go into overdrive, and Jack wasn't all too sure that she knew much about this type of magic. So she'd probably just end up taking him back to North for help, which would negate his reason for going to her in the first place.

Sandy, then? Sandy had his own brand of magic, so Jack didn't know how knowledgeable he'd be in this area, but Sandy had that twinkle of mischief in his eye that Jack so prided himself on. While he'd probably find it highly amusing, he'd also keep it a secret if Jack begged him to.

"Sandy it is," Jack decided. Now it was just a matter of tracking him down.

Jack pushed himself to his feet and rolled up his sleeves for the umpteenth time. If he tried to sneak out through the front door or the Globe Room, he'd be spotted in a heartbeat. And the yetis, while well-meaning, were snitches. No, he needed to find another way out.

Tilting his head backwards, he examined the windows lining the side wall of the library. The row right at the very top had little latches, indicating that they opened. Jack's face split into a grin. Perfect!

Or not, as he soon found out. It was hard enough keeping a grip on his staff, which was now more than twice his height, but then there was the added problem that, with his balance shot, the wind was having a very hard time giving him a ride. His first attempt at reaching his goal had him slamming head-first into one of the larger, non-opening ones. It was eight attempts after that, and very close to crying in frustration (yep, the spell had definitely altered more than just his appearance), before Jack was forced to concede that flying was off the metaphorical table.

But then how was he supposed to get to Sandy?

A snow globe would work, he realised. Except for the part where they were kept in North's office, where North was probably located. And the whole point of sneaking out was avoiding North, so that didn't help him. Maybe, though... maybe he could create a distraction that would lure North away just long enough for him to get one?

Wracking his brain for an idea, Jack wobbled over to the doorway. Using his staff, he managed to open the door just wide enough for him to squeeze through (he could no longer reach the handle), and he cautiously stuck his head out into the hallway beyond. It was blessedly empty, and he hesitantly slipped out, toddling down as quickly and silently as he could manage. What he needed was a way to distract North long enough to get a snow globe, or another idea for getting away from the Pole. Whichever came first.

What came first, however, turned out to be neither of those things. It was, in fact, an elf. An elf that was about as startled to see Jack as Jack was to see it.

"Don't tell North!" Jack blurted before he could stop himself.

The elf stared at him wide-eyed, but made no move to run off and dob him in, much to Jack's relief. He liked to think that, over the years, he'd formed some sort of solidarity with the little cretins. Maybe this was his chance to test that.

"Hey, uh, you wouldn't know a way I could smuggle myself out of here, would you?"

The elf got a look on its face that Jack was worried he may have taught it and promptly ran off in the direction it had come from.

"Hey, wait!" Jack called, struggling to keep up both his pants and with the elf as he followed. His staff whacked into a wall as he sped hastily around a corner, knocking him off balance and sending him sprawling across the floor. When he picked himself back up, it was to see the elf he'd been chasing standing before him, four others carrying a washing basket loaded with clothes flanking it. All of them bore the same expression.

 _Well, there goes my dignity_ , Jack sighed.

Much to Jack's equal relief and utter disbelief, the elves' plan ran rather smoothly, even with the end of Jack's staff sticking out one side of the basket. There was only one instant when he thought that they might get found out, but the yeti who had stopped them had only done so to add a used tea-towel to the basket before carrying on. Despite the humiliation he felt at being forced to hide in the laundry like some sort of criminal, he couldn't deny the elves had done a remarkably good job.

He'd taught them well. Maybe too well.

Jack climbed out of the basket the second it touched the floor. The elves that had been carrying it quickly shut the door to North's office behind them. They'd found some of their cohorts along the way, who had readily agreed to be the distraction. Right at that moment, North would be busy trying to get them to come down from the remote controlled planes and stop draping the Workshop in excessive amounts of tinsel. They probably had about ten minutes, tops.

"Thanks," Jack grinned at his rescuers, tugging his staff free from the pile of clothes.

The elves grinned back, bells on their hats ringing as they patted each other on the back. Jack left them to it, turning to face the desk he knew North kept at least one snow globe in at any given time. It certainly looked bigger than it had before.

There was no way he was going to reach it as he currently was, he knew. He'd probably have to climb up onto the chair and use that as a step-ladder. But it was a swivel chair. Which meant it was going to move.

"Hey, can you guys hold this steady for me, please?" Jack knew it wasn't exactly a good idea to show them how to reach high places that were kept high for a very good reason. But desperate times and all that.

The elves needed a little direction, but in under a minute he had them gripping the legs of the swivel chair so that he could clamber up and tug open the desk drawer. Sure enough, there was a snow globe.

"Yes!" Jack crowed, picking it up in both hands. One word and a light toss and he'd be on his way back to being his regular size.

...Except he had no idea where Sandy was.

Sandy was nearly impossible to track at the best of times. Jack knew he could just pick a city and wait for him to come, but that could take hours if he picked wrong, and then there was the problem of getting Sandy's attention; if he couldn't reach the dreamsand or get his attention, he'd be back to square one.

The sound of heavy footsteps approaching the door had Jack's gaze darting up in alarm. He was out of time.

"Scatter!" he whisper-yelled to the elves, who didn't hesitate to obey. "Island of the Sleepy Sands!" he hastily told the snow globe, and then tossed it. He threw himself through the portal a second before the door swung open.

His last-second decision had made sense in his mind, but Jack knew he was going to regret it. He knew Sandy would turn up on the island eventually, but he also knew that that 'eventually' could be anywhere between a few minutes and a few years. The guy was busy, after all.

What this meant, then, was that unless he could somehow miraculously relearn how to fly in his current form, he was going to be stranded on the empty island for anywhere between a few minutes and a few years.

Jack groaned, slumping down where he had landed. This whole day had just been one bad decision after another.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been lying there before he saw any sign of life, but it must have been a while if his protesting muscles were any indicator. Jack blinked up at the sky dazedly, struggling to make out the figure darting overhead. A warm breeze carrying the scent of wildflowers blew over him and he tensed.

"Oh no," he cried, burying his face in his sleeves as if that would somehow make him invisible to spirits. "Please don't let her see me!"

Lady Luck must have really had it in for him that day, because when he dared to peep out from behind his feeble protection, it was to find that she had stopped above the island. And then she was descending. Of course.

Jack stared up at May Queen as she landed softly in front of him, faced flushed with embarrassment. She stared back, noticeably confused.

"Um, hi," he forced out when she said nothing.

"Jack?" May frowned, eyes darting from his face to his clothes, then to his staff lying in the sand beside him, and then back again. "Jack Frost?"

Jack reluctantly nodded.

"What in Mother's name happened to you?"

"I may have... accidentally... done something stupid?"

"Yes, I figured as much," she said, and Jack huffed. "But what exactly?"

Well, there was no point in trying to hide it now, right? At least she wasn't teasing him. "I was practicing magic."

May looked wholly unimpressed. "And would it be correct to suppose that you made a mistake?"

"It would."

She gazed around at their surroundings. "I take it you're looking for Sandy."

"Yeah," Jack grimaced. "I was kinda hoping he'd be able to help me fix..." he looked down at himself, "...this."

May crossed her arms, eyes narrowing in suspicion. "Would North not be the more obvious choice?" she asked.

"I don't want to tell him," Jack confessed. His left sleeve unrolled itself and flopped down into the sand. He glared at it.

May gave him a look that said she knew exactly why he didn't want to tell North, and that she definitely did not approve, but she didn't comment on it. "Would Sandy know much about this sort of magic? He might just take you to the North Pole anyway."

Jack groaned, hating the logic in her words. He'd already noted the likelihood of that, but he hadn't really thought about it too deeply beyond 'Sandy won't tell'. But if they were back at the Pole, the chances of North finding out anyway were undesirably high.

"I don't have any other choice, though!" he protested, though it came out sounding more like a whine.

"I wouldn't go that far," May replied, and Jack felt his heart lift with hope. "What about Father Time?"

His hopes plummeted again. "Father Time hates me!"

May's response was an expression that was equal parts exasperated and completely unsurprised. Jack tried not to let it bother him. "Well, I'm sure there are other options. Perhaps Ceres or Lleu know someone with abilities in this sort of magic."

Just what he needed. Further humiliation. May might not tease him, but Ceres sure as hell would. Some of his displeasure must have shown on his face, because May levelled him with a _look_ and said,

"Well, your options are stay as you are, go and ask North for help, or we can see if the others have any ideas."

The first two he refused to even consider; the former would mean an eternity of teasing from pretty much everyone, the latter facing North's disappointment. Which really left him with only one option. Damn.

 

* * *

 

The second Lleu set eyes on him, Jack knew he should have just gone to the Pole and turned himself over to North. His eyes went comically large, and he gasped so loudly that Jack was surprised he didn't inhale them all right then and there. And then, a split second later, he vanished on a blast of humid wind.

Jack struggled in May's arms, demanding to be put down – she'd been forced to carry him when it had become apparent that he wasn't going to be able to fly anywhere anytime soon, which had only added to Jack's humiliation. He really didn't have any dignity left at all, did he?

Lleu's rather abrupt 'gasp-and-run' wasn't anywhere near as bad as when they'd found Ceres, though. She'd taken one look at him and burst into laughter. In fact, she had yet to stop. Every time it looked like she might finally calm down, she'd glance back over at him and start up again.

Yes, facing North would definitely have been better than this, he decided.

"I'm okay, I'm calm, I'm fine," Ceres wheezed, fanning her face with her hand as she took a few deep breaths. She turned to him, "Jack, you–" and then she was laughing again. Jack glared at her as she was forced to move away to the tree-line in an attempt to catch her breath.

It was at that moment that Lleu returned, though Jack only realised it when he was suddenly lifted off the ground and held tightly against something squishy.

_Oh no._

"So small!" Lleu whispered. He had, to absolutely no one's surprise and Jack's absolute mortification, gone to retrieve his heat-proof suit. Jack squirmed, trying to pull himself free, but Lleu was not letting go anytime soon. "Look, May!" he breathed. "Look! He's so cute!"

Jack twisted to glare at him. "Put me down!"

Lleu bit his lip and made a weird noise like a dying vacuum cleaner. "Even his voice is cute I'm _dying!"_

Jack turned his glare on May, making sure she knew he blamed her for this. She smiled at him in a semi-apologetic kind of way, but Jack knew she must have known this was going to happen. Maybe she was secretly a sadist.

"Can we please focus?" he huffed, crossing his arms as best as he could in his restraints.

Ceres, who had been about to rejoin them, fell into incoherency again.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa," Lleu squeed.

"This was a bad idea," Jack grumbled. It had started snowing. "Thanks for trying to help," he told May, "but I think I might be better off with Sandy. Lleu, put me down!"

"Wait! No! I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Lleu stopped trying to squeeze his insides out through his throat and carefully, albeit reluctantly, put him back on the ground. "I'll help! I'm helpful! Very helpful!" He made an obvious attempt to maintain a serious expression, but he didn't manage it for longer than a few seconds before he was forced to look away to hide his grin.

"You have to admit it _is_ funny," Ceres said from where she was leaning heavily against a tree. She glanced briefly at Jack, forced down another fit of laughter, and cleared her throat awkwardly.

"Not from where I'm standing," Jack countered.

"No, I imagine everything looks a great deal bigger from down there," she didn't even manage to get out the whole sentence before she broke down again.

Jack glared at all three of them, and then, with a huff, walked off into the trees. He didn't manage more than five steps, though, before his pant leg slipped down again and he tripped on it, sending him face-first into the dirt. Behind him, Ceres' laughter got louder. The snow fell harder.

With growing frustration, embarrassment, and anger, Jack pushed himself back to his feet and whirled around. "It's not funny!"

"Oh yes it is," she countered, wiping away a tear.

Jack could feel his own coming on – but borne from frustration pushed to the brink instead of mirth. The last thing he wanted to do was cry, though; just because he looked like a kid didn't mean he had to act like one, regardless that he was certain that he was more emotional than usual because of the spell.

The wind picked up, whipping leaves off the trees around them.

May glanced up at the sky nervously. "Jack," she said, tone warning.

Jack snapped his attention over to her, and then realised what he was doing. Taking a deep breath, he concentrated on calming himself, calling mentally for the wind to do the same. It worked, to an extent, but there was still a light flurry that refused to die. The weather usually responded to his emotions, so it was unlikely that he was going to have any real control until he got this whole mess sorted out.

"Ceres, stop laughing!" May snapped suddenly. "And, Lleu, control yourself. Jack needs help, not ridicule."

"Ugh, alright, alright," Ceres rolled her eyes. "Not sure what you expect us to be able to do about it, though."

"I'm not ridiculing him!" Lleu protested. "I just can't help it! Look at him, he's adorable!"

"Can you please not talk about me like I'm not here?" Jack cut across.

"We were hoping–" May said sternly, ignoring them all "–that one of you might know someone who is adept enough in this sort of magic to find a counter spell."

"North," they both said in unison.

Jack plonked himself down heavily on the ground and buried his face in his hands. He was doomed.

"Anyone else?" May prompted, not even responding to their suggestion.

Ceres and Lleu looked at each other, and then said, "Father Time?"

Jack resisted the urge to bang his head against the ground.

May huffed. "Anyone _else?_ "

Ceres shrugged. "Trivia, maybe? You'll be hard-pressed to find her though."

"How hard-pressed?" Jack asked, lifting his head.

Ceres turned her attention to him, and her lips quirked briefly. Thankfully, she managed to maintain her composure. "She hangs out in the Underworld."

Which was almost impossible to get to (or, rather, get _out_ of). So that meant there would be no help from Trivia. Darn.

"What about Mom?" Lleu suggested. "I mean, she's more nature magic than this sort of thing, but maybe she'd have an idea."

May turned to Jack, brows raised. "What do you think, Jack?"

Jack heaved a sigh and stumbled to his feet. "Well it's better than the great lot of nothing we had before."

She stepped forward with a nod, reaching to pick him up, but was beaten to it by Lleu, who cried, "Dibs carrying him!"

Jack gave a huge sigh and looked to the heavens for strength. Would the humiliation never end?

 

* * *

 

The flight over to Mother Nature's meadow was like being strapped to a hot air balloon, Jack decided. He'd thought that the ridiculous suit would have hindered Lleu's flying capabilities, and it had, in a sense, but not in the way Jack had presumed. As it turned out, all that hot air trapped inside the suit made him lighter – and, like an actual hot air balloon, it was relatively easy for the wind to blow him around.

Which meant there was a fair bit of turbulence, but Lleu's grip on him was like iron, so at least he wasn't at risk of falling.

They landed outside the castle without any drama, except for the part where Lleu resolutely refused to put him down. And so Jack was forcefully carried against his will into Mother Nature's parlour, where she and some of the sprites that maintained the meadow were having tea.

Whatever conversation they'd been having cut itself off as soon as the four of them walked in, and one of the sprites dropped a fork. The clatter was impossibly loud in the silence.

"What on earth...?" Mother breathed, getting to her feet fluidly.

"We're sorry to bother you, Mother," May said. "But it would seem we have something of a... situation on our hands."

"Yes, I can see that," she replied, walking straight over to Jack and pulling him from a protesting Lleu's arms. "Jack, dear, what have you gotten yourself into?" she asked, a touch fondly, as she held him up to her eye level.

Jack resisted the urge to kick in a bid for freedom. "Magic," he confessed.

"Leave us," she said, and immediately the sprites, who were snickering, hastened to leave the room.

As soon as the doors clicked shut behind them, Mother Nature gestured for the three other seasonals to join her at the table. She held on to Jack, sitting him in her lap when she reclaimed her seat. Jack tried not to let his embarrassment show.

"Help yourselves to anything you'd like," she smiled at them.

Lleu grinned and cut himself a large slice of the teacake in the middle of the table, while Ceres poured herself a cup of tea. May simply sat and watched, waiting to see what Mother Nature would do.

"Now, Jack," Mother Nature said, reaching around him to place a small piece of teacake on a plate. "I doubt this was the result you were intending for. Why don't we start with you telling me exactly what you were trying to do?" She scooped up a small forkful and held it in front of Jack. She was fully intent on feeding him, it seemed. But Jack wasn't going to go down without a fight.

Lifting an arm up to reject the cake, he replied, "The book said it was supposed to turn things into clocks. I was trying it on a chair, but instead... this happened."

Mother Nature nodded seriously, shoving the cake in his face again. Jack leaned back a bit. "And what words did you use? Be as precise as you can," she said.

"I don't rememb-ugh–" Jack found himself cut off as Mother Nature took advantage of his response to force the cake into his mouth.

When she went to scoop up another mouthful, he flung himself from her lap and moved to hide behind May, who looked mildly sympathetic. The next second saw him being picked up again, this time by Lleu, who held him protectively with one arm and continued shovelling cake with the other. "Mine," he said, voice muffled by all the food he'd crammed in.

Jack was more than a little annoyed, but at least he wasn't being force-fed anymore. Though he didn't much like the smirk on Ceres' face. May was glaring at Lleu, and Jack took heart in knowing that there was at least one person on his side, if nothing else.

Mother Nature put the fork back down on her plate, not the least bit fazed by the development. "Well, without knowing exactly what you said, it will be difficult to know how to fix this. What about the spell book you found it in? Did you bring that with you?"

Jack shook his head. In truth, he hadn't even thought about it. And he probably wouldn't have been able to carry it, anyway.

"Well then, that is the first thing that can be done. Bring me the book, and we'll see what we can do."

Jack slumped in his seat. After all that, after all the humiliation and effort, he was being forced to go back to the Pole in the end, anyway. Yep, he really should have just asked North. He looked over to May – the only one there who knew why he didn't want to go back – to find she was already watching him.

 _You don't really have much of a choice,_ her expression said.

 _I regret everything_ , said his.

"Road trip!" Lleu announced (though it sounded more like 'rugh twph', what with all the cake in his mouth). He jumped to his feet, making sure to secure his hold on Jack as he did so. He swallowed, then, "Or, rather, sky trip, given that none of us has a license and there are no roads to the North Pole."

Jack's eyes widened. "Wait, no!" he cried. "I'll go by myself!" Actually, no, that was a terrible idea. He would need some help to get there. "I'll go with May! Lleu and Ceres don't have to come!"

Lleu looked scandalised. "If I don't come, who will carry you?!" he retorted, sounding horrified. "Don't worry, Mini Snow-Cone, I've got you!"

"This is the most fun I've had in years," Ceres added. "Of _course_ I'm coming!"

This was not going to go well.

 

* * *

 

It actually went really well. Jack had no idea how, but it did. The flight to the Pole had been a little tedious, given his need to be carried and the inevitable conversation about the importance of not getting caught, but the rest of it had been incredibly easy. They'd managed to sneak in through an open window, and then the elves had been more than happy to create another diversion so he and the other three could sneak back into the library.

It never occurred to Jack that maybe it was going a little bit too well – that Lady Luck was only on his side now so she could take it all away later. That is, until about five minutes into their search for the spell book Jack had been using.

All four of them froze as they heard the library door swing open. As one, they tensed and glanced over to it. North stood just this side of the doorway, staring down at them with the same shocked, and marginally frightened, expression on their own faces. His eyes darted to Jack, widened further, then quickly back to the other three.

"Not my fault!" he cried, throwing his hands up in surrender.

Jack stared at him in complete confusion, but he didn't miss the realisation that passed over the faces of the other seasonals as they exchanged looks, a silent conversation passing between them.

Well, Jack supposed, he'd gotten what he'd wanted. Too bad it came with all this humiliation. He opened his mouth to confess, but was beaten to it by Ceres.

"Hello again, North," she said, a malicious grin sliding onto her face.

"Hello... Ceres," North smiled, but it was a little strained. Once again, Jack wondered what it was that he'd missed.

"Perhaps you can assist us," May added.

North's gaze once again darted to Jack. "How can I help?" he asked carefully.

"We are in need of a counter spell for the one that did this," she gestured to where Jack was perched on a table, hand still frozen halfway through turning the page of the book in front of him.

North slowly made his way over to him. Jack didn't dare to move.

"Jack," North whispered. "What happened?"

Jack bit his lip. "Spell backfired," he whispered back. He still had no idea what was happening, but so far it looked like whatever was going on between North and the other seasonals was working in his favour.

North frowned at him in a reprimanding sort of way, and Jack avoided his eyes, thoroughly chastened without the need for words. "What were you trying to do?" he asked, voice louder and stronger than it had been before. Obviously he'd gotten over whatever had caused that reaction in him. There was a hint of disapproval in his tone, but amusement was more prominent.

"...Turn the chair into a clock."

North burst into laughter. The four of them flinched at the sudden loud noise. "You mispronounced last word, didn't you?" he grinned. "Made same mistake myself many years ago. Ombric teased me for weeks."

"So you know how to fix it?!" Jack perked up. Would he finally get his normal sized body back?

"Do not worry, my friend," he said. "Spell should wear off on its own in twenty-four hours."

Jack deflated. He still had twenty hours stuck like this?!

"He still has like twenty hours stuck like that?!" Lleu beamed. Everyone turned to stare at him and he coughed awkwardly, "Uh, I mean, oh no!"

"I suppose we should go tell Mother that the problem will solve itself," May said.

"Okay but can I stay here? I don't want to risk being force-fed again," Jack grimaced.

"I'll stay with him!" Lleu volunteered, raising his hand.

"I'll come with you, May," Ceres said, following May to the library door – there was no point in sneaking out now that they'd gotten caught. "It's not as funny anymore."

"I'm sorry I didn't listen to you," Jack apologised once they were gone.

North clapped him on the shoulder, and Jack nearly face-planted right into the still-open book. "I trust you have learned lesson?"

"Yeah."

"Gimme!" Lleu snatched Jack off the table and whirled them both out of North's reach. "You're so cute~! You should stay like this forever~!"

Jack sent North a beseeching look. _Help me!_ he mouthed, but North just chuckled and shut the book Jack had been looking through. Yes, he had definitely learned his lesson. And he vowed to never let it happen again.


	117. Identity Crisis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everybody! This chapter brought to you at the request of Guest. Which is probably not their real name but oh well!
> 
> I don't own RotG or Aladdin

Jack awoke on an icy Wednesday morning with the distinct impression that something was horribly wrong. For the life of him, however, he couldn't quite pinpoint what had given him such a feeling. He was still perched in the tree he'd fallen asleep in the previous night, the snow he'd brought was still perfectly settled in the surrounding landscape, and there was no sign of a looming apocalypse on the horizon.

But he was still absolutely certain that something wasn't right.

It was only when he stood up that he realised what it was – or, rather, a clue. His hoodie was marred by damp patches where what had once been a frosting of ice had somehow inexplicably melted into water overnight. Jack stared at it, baffled. Since when did ice melt in such close proximity to him?

The next clue came when he realised his staff was missing. He scanned the immediate area frantically, but there was no sign of it. Had it been stolen? Who would want to take his staff? (Besides the elves, but they weren't exactly here.) Flummoxed and a tad anxious, he jumped off the branch.

The wind immediately swooped up to catch him, even despite the fact that he'd never been able to fly without his staff before, and that was the third clue. But the wind, too, wasn't quite right. It was the wind, of that Jack had no doubt, but it wasn't _his_ wind. _His_ wind was cold and carried a flurry of snowflakes and the faint scent of pine. This wind was none of those things. This wind was incredibly humid, carried bits of what was probably sand and leaves, and smelled distinctly of grass and sunscreen, with a touch of sea salt. This wind Jack recognised as the one that usually accompanied his summer counterpart.

The fourth clue was that the heat of it didn't bother him in the slightest, despite the fact that it was warm enough to start melting the snow.

"Uh, okay," Jack drew out, frowning down at himself and the landscape beneath his feet. "Something's not quite right here."

Why had Lleu's wind answered his call? Where was his usual companion? Where was his _staff?_ And why did he suddenly not need it?

As if in answer to his confusion, a cold gust of wind whipped between the trees. Jack quickly dropped back down to land on the ground before the two air currents could clash. His wind's greeting was promptly followed by a less pleasant one.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"

Descending from the trees like a Fury from the depths of the Underworld came Ceres. But there was something decidedly not quite right about her, either, and it wasn't the murderous expression on her face (that was pretty normal, actually).

She opened her mouth again – no doubt to continue screaming about something Jack had no clue about – but paused when she finally got a good look at him. For a long moment, the two simply gaped at each other.

Ceres' hair, once a chestnut brown colour, had turned pure white, and her dark eyes a bright blue. She was pale as death, and frost clung to the edges of her dress. Coupled with her righteous fury, she looked like the personification of a snowstorm. And, clasped tightly in one hand, was Jack's staff.

"Well," she said at length, some of the anger gone from her tone, "clearly _you_ are not to blame for this."

"What happened to you?" Jack asked. "Why do you have my staff?"

"Your stick was in my hand when I woke up, but as to what happened, I could ask you the same thing," her eyes travelled from his head to his feet, and Jack suddenly had the startling suspicion that Ceres wasn't the only one who'd had a makeover. He almost didn't want to know, but at the same time he was curious.

Without a word, he took off with the aid of his borrowed wind and headed towards the nearby town, vaguely aware that Ceres was following him. It didn't take long to reach, and within the span of three minutes he was standing outside an electronics store, staring at his reflection in the window.

Even with the less than ideal 'mirror' the changes were plain to see. His hair had gone a vibrant red, his eyes hazel, and if he wasn't mistaken he now had a tan.

"What…?" he muttered, running a hand through his hair. The red stayed put.

Jack spun around to face Ceres. "So you don't have any idea what's going on?"

"No," she sniffed. "All I know that I was fine one minute and then the next I looked like _this_ ," she gestured towards herself in disgust, "and was spreading ice with every step!"

Jack forced down the indignation that rose with her comment and tried to stay focused on the problem at hand. Besides, as he realised when he glanced at the pavement that was quickly freezing over, she hadn't been kidding. "Right, then," he said. "If you've somehow got my powers, and I've got Lleu's, then it's fair to assume that they're both in a similar state. Maybe one of them knows what's going on."

Ceres crossed her arms and scowled but didn't dispute the suggestion. "It's the off-season, so May will be back at her cottage. As for the idiot, your guess is as good as mine."

"Well, then," Jack shrugged, "looks like we're going to England."

 

* * *

 

England, like the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, was experiencing summer. Normally this would have made it very difficult for Jack to fly through. Now, however, it was no less uncomfortable than when he normally flew through winter; which is to say, not at all. Ceres, however, looked like she was feeling the heat. But she was far too stubborn to ever admit to such a thing. Jack just hoped if it got too much she'd have the common sense to go elsewhere.

He and Ceres had been to May's cottage enough times in the past to be able to locate it easily, and it was sooner rather than later that the two of them arrived (with Ceres arriving first and Jack a few minutes behind so as not to cause a thunderstorm). That being said, however, Jack wasn't entirely sure they'd come to the right place; where May's cottage usually was, all they could see was a tangle of overgrown vines, vegetables larger than vegetables had any right to be, an overflow of autumn flowers, and, like icing on the cake, all of the nearby trees had kindly dropped some of their now orange and red leaves on top.

Jack and Ceres paused on the edge of the tangled mess, trying to find a path through to the cottage. But if there was one, it was so buried it was invisible.

"So, uh, I think it's safe to say that May got your powers," Jack commented lightly.

Ceres wore an expression that was caught somewhere between horror and vast amusement. "Your powers of deduction are impeccable," she said sarcastically.

Jack rolled his eyes and returned his focus on trying to find a way through. After a moment's consideration, he took to the air again and hovered over the overgrown mess. From above, he could just make out the roof of the cottage, and moved to perch on the edge of it.

"May?" he called down. "You in there?"

No response.

Jack shuffled a little closer to the edge of the roof and tried to peer through what little gaps there were between the thick vines. "May?"

Reaching out with his hand, he tried to move one of the thicker vines out of the way, only for it to burst into flames upon contact. Jack jumped back, startled.

"Crap! _Crap!_ " he flailed. He'd never accidentally started a fire before. How was he supposed to put it out without– "Ceres!" he yelled.

"What?!" he heard her snap back.

"Can you come over here for a second please?!"

The fire quickly consumed the vine and moved onto a nearby pile of dried leaves. The flames grew.

"What for?!"

He blew on the flames in a futile attempt to put it out, but all it did was make it worse. Moon, May was going to kill him. "Just come, please!" he shouted, not even caring that he sounded desperate. He _was_ desperate.

There was an exasperated sigh from the other side of the 'garden' and then Ceres appeared above it. "What do yo–?" she cut herself off as she took in the disaster Jack had accidentally created. "You're kidding."

"Just put it out!"

"How am I supposed to put it out?!"

Jack resisted the urge to scream. "Use the ice!"

"How is ice going to help with _this?_ I don't even know how to control these stupid powers of yours!"

Meanwhile, the fire had found the pumpkins and was greedily eating away at those, too. Well, if nothing else, they'd have a nice roast vegetable lunch.

 _Think! Think!_ Jack mentally urged himself. How did he normally use his powers? He could ice over the ground with just his feet, and he could create frosted windows and things with his hands, but most of his work he did with his staff, needing to use it to channel all that raw power…

"The staff!" he said before he could change his mind. "Use it as a conduit and freeze the garden!"

Ceres hesitated for a second before hoisting up the staff. Looking like she has absolutely no idea what she was doing, she then pointed the hooked end towards the ever-growing fire. Ice sprung to life and settled on the surrounding vegetation, only to turn to steam a second later. But Ceres pressed on, and slowly the fire started to die down as its fuel cooled, until all that was left was a charcoaled and damp pile of ash and plants.

Jack heaved a huge sigh of relief and swatted at the worst of it, creating a hole into the garden below. Knowing that now he had Lleu's powers he wouldn't have to worry about any residual heat, he didn't even hesitate to drop down into the mess, leaving Ceres still hovering above.

It was just as tangled inside as it was from the outside, he soon discovered. He could barely walk without some plant or other scraping against him. He kept his hands secured safely in his hoodie's pocket, however; it wasn't worth risking starting another fire, especially down in the heart of it.

"May?!" he called again, pushing through the undergrowth with his shoulder in an attempt to reach the cottage's porch. "May? Are you down here?"

"Jack?" a quiet voice called from behind him.

Jack paused, turning to look back over his shoulder. "May?"

"I'm over here!"

Jack wasted no time in retracing his steps and then setting off in the opposite direction to the one he'd initially chosen. He called out repeatedly, following the sounds of May's muffled voice through the endless vines, branches, and undergrowth. He could almost see the beautiful flowers that had been there before, but only as flashes of colour smothered by everything else.

Eventually, he reached a point so thickly overgrown that he could go no further. "You here, May?" he tried again.

"Yes," she replied, her voice louder than it had been before.

He tried to spot her amidst the mess but there was no sign of her. "Where are you?"

"I'm stuck. The grapes got me."

Sure enough, there was a thick entangling of grape vines directly in front of him. If he looked really closely, Jack thought he could see the white of May's dress. "Okay, hang on," he said, pulling his sleeves down over his hands and tugging at the grape vines. "I'll get you out of there."

But the vines were stubborn and resolutely refused to budge.

May heaved a resigned sigh. "It's no use. If I could just figure out what's happened I might be able to _make_ them move but… well, that didn't work out so well last time."

"Ceres and I are as lost as you are," Jack confessed. "But it looks like we've switched powers or something. From the looks of things you got Ceres'. Ceres got mine, and I got Lleu's, so I guess that means that Lleu got yours."

"Wait a minute… Jack, grapes are a summer and autumn growing fruit!"

"Okay, so?"

" _So_ you should be able to control them if you've got Lleu's powers."

Jack deadpanned, regardless of whether or not she could actually see his expression. "May, the last time I used Lleu's powers I set your garden on fire."

"You did _what?!_ "

"Relax! It was only this overgrown stuff. Ceres put it out before it got too out of hand!" He shook his head. "My point is, if I try and control these grapes or whatever, I might just start another fire. And I'm not going to be able to put it out if I do."

"Well, maybe it's worth the risk," she countered, though she didn't sound too sure about it. "I'd rather have to regrow my garden than be stuck here until the plants die."

"Okay," Jack relented uneasily, and he tugged his sleeves back down around his wrists. "I've never controlled a plant before, though."

"I'll talk you through it," May said. Her voice sounded stronger, more sure.

It was worth a shot, he supposed. And if this all went to hell then he was resolutely going to blame her. He followed her directions, finding that small part of himself that was connected to the grape vine and manipulating it the same way he had done time and again with snowstorms and the like. It was hard – unlike a storm, the plant was a living thing, and he couldn't simply shepherd it like he did with weather patterns – but eventually Jack found what he was looking for. He heard May instructing him on how to coax the vines to listen to him (apparently, like the wind, you couldn't just order plants around), and did his best to follow.

When he dared to open his eyes again, it was to find that he had succeeded… sort of. The vines were still tightly tangled, but a small gap had appeared, just wide enough for someone small to squeeze through. He could see May now. Vines had secured themselves around her left arm and both legs, but there was only relief on her face. Much like himself and Ceres, her appearance had changed a bit. Her hair was darker than its usual honey colour, and her eyes were brown instead of green.

"Hi," Jack grinned at her. He stepped into the small opening and tugged on the vines around her arm until they were loose enough for her to slip free.

"Hi," she smiled back. As soon as her hand was free she started working on her trapped legs. It only took her about a minute before she slipped free of the last of the vines.

The walk back to the charred hole Jack had jumped down was easier now that he had made a path, and it wasn't long before they were back in the open air. May took a deep breath and stretched.

Ceres, having gotten impatient, had taken a seat on the edge of the roof and crossed her arms. Even despite still having Jack's staff, she seemed no better at controlling her borrowed powers, and by now most of the thatching had frosted over.

"It's about time!" she huffed, getting to her feet.

"Sorry," Jack replied, not at all apologetic, "May was a little tied up."

"So I take it you don't have a clue how we got like this, either," Ceres said to May.

May shook her head, looking down nervously at what had once been an immaculate garden. "I didn't even realise anything was wrong until I started trying to grow flowers but got a jungle instead."

"So I guess that just leaves one suspect," Jack began.

Ceres put her hands on her hips. "Anyone know how to find the idiot?"

"It's the middle of summer; he could be anywhere," May ran a tired hand down her face.

Jack's brow furrowed in thought. Normally it would have been next to impossible to find Lleu in the middle of the season without him announcing his presence somewhere. But this wasn't exactly a normal situation. Warm wind kept him in the air; wind that usually accompanied Lleu wherever he went. Surely, then, whatever had happened to the lot of them, the wind would at least know where Lleu had been last they'd been together.

"I think I have an idea," he said. "Wind? Can you take us to where you were last with Lleu?" The wind surged excitably, and Jack suddenly found himself being tugged along. He glanced back at the girls and shrugged. "It's worth a shot."

May nodded and Ceres grumbled, and then they were soaring above land and sea.

It felt like it took hours, but finally the wind started to slow down somewhere above the Arabian Desert. Jack shared a look with the other two. He never would have expected Lleu to hang around a desert – there wasn't anything to do, by Lleu's definition of entertainment anyway. But there they were – Jack comfortable with the temperature for the first time in his life, May looking a little warm, and Ceres practically melting – in the middle of nowhere. Jack would have questioned whether or not they were even in the right place if not for May's sudden cry of,

"Down there!"

Jack looked to where she was pointing, easily spotting the vibrant circle of colour amidst all the sand. None of them seemed to know what to make of it, and in unanimous agreement they sank down for a closer look.

His first thought was that this must be one of those desert mirages he'd heard about, because there just didn't seem to be any other explanation for what he was seeing. This singular patch of desert had been completely transformed. There were flowers _everywhere_ ; all different types and colours. It was an oasis without the oasis. Lying right in the middle of the flower garden was the spirit they were looking for, and Lleu eagerly sat up when he noticed them. There was an extravagant flower crown adorning his now much lighter hair.

"Hey, guys!" he beamed. "Wow, you look great!"

"What the _hell_ are you doing?" Ceres demanded.

Lleu looked down at himself and the flowers. "Um, sitting down?"

May pursed her lips. "These flowers don't belong here," she said. "They won't survive."

"Ah, it was just for the experience," Lleu waved flippantly. "How many people can say they created a flower haven in the middle of the desert?"

"Why would you _want_ to?" Jack frowned. As soon as he asked he knew it was a stupid question. Why did Lleu do anything? Scientists probably wouldn't even be able to find the answer.

Lleu looked at him like he had a few screws loose. "Lleu, flower princess of the desert!" he proclaimed, gesturing widely like he was imagining some Broadway or newspaper headline. "How could I pass up the opportunity?"

"Wait, so you _know_ what's going on?!" Ceres accused.

"Uh, yeah?" Lleu raised a brow. "I'm the one who did it. Well, relatively speaking, anyway. I didn't _actually_ cast the magic that did it but–"

His rambling was cut off as Ceres suddenly grabbed him by the collar and hauled him upwards. "What did you _do?!_ "

Wordlessly and blank faced, Lleu reached into one of the pockets of his board-shorts and pulled out a golden lamp.

Ceres stared at it, as did May and Jack. All Jack could think of was that it looked freakishly like the lamp from that one Disney movie about the princess with the tiger.

"I wished it," Lleu said.

Ceres dropped him, though Jack suspected it was more out of blatant shock than anything else. "You wished it," she repeated.

"Yes." To prove his point, he rubbed the side of the lamp with the palm of his hand. Much like in that one Disney movie, a thick cloud of purple smoke drifted up through the lamp's spout and slowly coalesced into a looming figure, whose lower body was just a trail of vapour connected to the spout it had come from.

The genie, because really what else could it have been, loomed over the lot of them with dark, serious eyes. "What is thy bidding, master?" it asked, sounding resentful.

"No bidding right now; I just wanted to show these guys," Lleu grinned.

The genie glared at him.

"Where did you find a magic lamp?" May asked exasperatedly.

"It was just buried in the sand! I can't believe someone would just leave it there."

"So let me see if I've got this straight," Jack held up a hand to pause any further conversation. "You found a magic lamp, and then wished for us all to… what? Switch powers?"

"Yeah, that's about right."

"Why?" Jack, May, and Ceres all asked simultaneously.

"Uh, because it's much easier to be a flower princess with May's powers?" Lleu said, as if it should have been obvious.

"So why didn't you just wish to be a flower princess?" May crossed her arms. She looked almost as mad as Ceres.

"Because this way you guys got to join in on the fun!"

Jack stared at him. Somehow, a brief freak out and then the subsequent destruction of May's garden didn't quite meet his standards of fun.

"Change us back right now!" Ceres demanded. Her hair, damp with sweat, clung to her face. All the ice on her dress had long since melted, too. She looked like she was ready to faint.

"But flower princess!"

" _Now!_ "

Lleu groaned and flopped back into his flower bed. "Fiiiiiine," he sighed. "Magic genie, I wish to undo my first wish."

The genie rolled its eyes and snapped its fingers. Immediately Jack felt a satisfying chill course through him, and a surge of dizziness had him closing his eyes. When it passed, he opened them again to find, much to his relief, the other three looking the way they were supposed to. Ceres tossed his staff to him, and he happily snatched it out of the air.

"And for your last wish?" the genie prompted.

Lleu stared at the sky. "Hmm, I might save it. Never know when it might come in handy."

The genie appeared dissatisfied, but nonetheless retreated back inside the lamp.

"Are we done here?" Ceres snapped. "Because I have things to do."

"Yeah, I think we're done," Jack agreed. At least he hoped so; he was starting to feel a little hot.

"Good." Without another word, she took off and was gone.

"Do you want some help fixing your garden?" Jack turned to May.

She smiled at him. "Thank you, but I think you'd best get back to winter, don't you? Besides, it's _his_ fault," she glared down at Lleu, "so I'm going to make him fix it."

"Wait what happened to your garden?" Lleu frowned.

Jack shook his head. Deciding to leave them to it, he called on his wind – the cold one that had been with him for as long as he had been Jack Frost (and wasn't it a relief to be reunited) – and hovered a foot off the ground. "Next time you want to switch powers," he began, gaining Lleu's attention, " _don't._ "

"Aw, you guys are no fun," he pouted.

Jack simply rolled his eyes. "Good luck, May!" he said in farewell, and then he too was heading back towards the southern hemisphere. He dreaded to think what damage Lleu could cause with his final wish. Hopefully he'd never have to know.


	118. Six Feet Under(water)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo peeps! This is not actually the chapter that was scheduled to come out today :O BUT I'm having a SUPER hard time writing that one because it needs knowledge of the Guardians of Childhood canon that I do not know/have access to. SO. If any among you have read Nicholas St. North and the Battle of the Nightmare King and are okay with me asking you questions, please send me a PM. I am desperate.
> 
> In any case, this is a request from DarkInuFan. HeavensLuminousArc and I had a great time brainstorming titles for it (most of which are too ridiculous to actually use). I hope you all enjoy it ^w^

Jack was starting to regret ever having taught the Burgess kids how to manipulate people with puppy eyes. Just as well they hadn't used it on him in summer; he couldn't be sure he wouldn't have crumbled to their will regardless that the heat might have melted him. As it was, he'd been coerced (not that much coercion had been necessary, truth be told) into joining them a few weeks into spring at the lake for a swimming trip. He supposed they considered him the 'responsible adult supervision', regardless of the fact that, physically, he was only a few years older than them.

Sitting in the shallows, Jack made sure to keep one eye on the kids further out, who were making full use of the inflatable water slide and other assorted 'pool' toys Monty had gotten for Christmas, and the other on Sophie in front of him, who was decked out in a bright pink swimsuit and so many floaties that there were almost more of them than there was of her. So far she seemed content to just splash around, but he wasn't going to leave her by herself (both because she wasn't a strong swimmer yet and because he didn't want her to feel left out).

Eventually, though, the sound of laughter and splashing from the older kids caught Sophie's attention, and she stood waist-deep in the water, staring out at them.

"What's up, Soph?" Jack asked. "You wanna go down the slide?"

Sophie nodded enthusiastically, not bothering to look at him.

"Okay," Jack pushed himself to his feet. He reached down and scooped her up, depositing her on his shoulders. "Hold on tight!"

Leaving his hoodie-clad staff sticking up in the dirt of the shore, Jack started to wade deeper into the water. The kids had set up the slide roughly around the point where the water level reached their shoulders so that they could still stand up (though they had to keep nudging it back into place every now and then) – and so it was only around chest-height for Jack. He was nowhere near as scared of water now as he used to be, but he had to admit that he was grateful that he wouldn't have to go further than what his feet could reach. Sophie kicked her legs, and Jack indulgently bobbed down so that her feet were submerged.

"Sophie's got dibs on the slide next!" he called up to Pippa, who was just getting ready to go down herself.

"Slide! Slide! Slide!" Sophie echoed excitably.

"Do you wanna go down with me, Soph?" Pippa called back.

Sophie clung to Jack's head, shaking her own decisively.

"I think she wants me to take her," Jack chuckled.

Pippa shrugged and pushed herself off, landing in the water at the bottom with a resounding splash that drenched Claude, who'd lunged after a runaway beach ball.

"C'mon, Soph, let's get up there," Jack said, tilting his head up to look at her. At her enthusiastic agreement, he waded around to the back of the slide and started climbing. They'd barely made it to the top before Cupcake was joining them.

"Race you," she smirked, prepping herself on the far left of the slide.

"Ha! You'd need a miracle to beat us," Jack grinned back. "Right, Sophie?"

"We win!" Sophie giggled as Jack lowered her down to sit in front of him.

"Not yet you haven't," Cupcake pointed out. "Oi! Monty!"

Monty squeaked, immediately turning to look up at them at the same time Caleb tossed the beach ball to him. It bounced off his head and back onto the water with a dull splat.

"Can you be judge?!"

"Ah, okay!" Monty returned. "Um, ready? Set! Go!"

They pushed off at the same time, and Jack eased Sophie back a bit so they were almost parallel with the slide. A second later they plunged into the water. With all the floaties, Sophie barely even went under.

"Who won?!" Cupcake asked the second her head cleared the surface.

Monty wordlessly pointed to Sophie and Jack.

"We won! We won!" Sophie splashed, and Jack scooped her up in victory.

"Undefeatable!" he crowed.

Cupcake huffed, but there was a smile on her face. "I want a rematch!"

"You're o–"

"Hey, where's Jamie?"

Claude's question cut Jack off, and with rising horror, Jack realised he couldn't see Jamie anywhere.

"When did anyone last see him?" he asked loudly, twisting in place, hoping to catch sight of him. But it was like he'd vanished.

Or drowned.

Jack shoved that thought aside. There was no way he was going to even entertain the thought. Not Jamie. Not in this lake. He'd probably just run back to the house to use the bathroom or something.

"I don't know," Pippa returned uneasily. "I saw him maybe five minutes ago?"

"Yeah," Caleb agreed. "He said he was going for a swim."

Jack's heart pounded in his chest. If Jamie had gone for a swim there was no reason they shouldn't have been able to see him. "Jamie?!" he called. "Jamie, you here?!"

Nothing.

Fear crept up on him, catching in his throat. Wordlessly, he passed Sophie over to Cupcake, who took her without protest. All the kids were wearing expressions that matched the way Jack was feeling, but he knew he had to stay calm – for them, as well as for Jamie. It wouldn't do if they freaked out because he freaked out.

"I'll be right back," he promised, then dove under the water.

Even without the old fear of being submerged, Jack didn't think he'd ever get used to, let alone like, the feeling of being completely under the water. And keeping your eyes open at the same time was rather uncomfortable, to say the least. But he pushed any and all unease aside and forced himself to swim out deeper into the lake, eyes peeled for a smudge of brown hair or green shorts. He stayed under for just over a minute before he knew he needed to surface for air, and then it was straight back down again.

It felt like it took an age, but finally, _finally_ , he spotted movement and a bit of colour that didn't match the rest of the lake far below him. Jack didn't waste any time. He swiftly descended further, ignoring the growing paranoia and fear creeping up on him. If Jamie was that far down and hadn't surfaced for ten minutes…

His fingers brushed an arm, and Jack quickly clamped down on it before he rocketed his way back up to the surface. He barely even paused to breathe before his attention was fixed on Jamie as he dragged them both back towards the shallows.

Jamie, who was staring up at him with wide, confused eyes.

Jamie, who was very much alive.

Not dead. Not even unconscious.

Jack let out a huge sigh of relief, pulling the kid to him in a furious embrace the second his feet brushed against the sandy bottom of the lake. "Are you okay?!" he demanded, pushing Jamie back to arm's length.

"I'm fine?" Jamie reassured him, but it sounded more like a question.

"How can you be fine?! You were under there for, like, ten minutes!"

Jamie stared at him for a long moment before slowly opening his mouth. Sitting on his tongue was a very familiar scale. A mermaid scale. He'd never been in danger of drowning at all.

A hysterical laugh bubbled up in Jack's throat and he made no move to stifle it.

"Jamie, are you okay?!" the other kids hurried over to him, wearing the same mixture of relief and concern on their faces.

"Yeah," Jamie smiled at them, taking the scale out of his mouth. "Nothing to worry about!"

"Nothing to–?!" Jack took a deep breath. "Don't ever, _ever_ scare me like that again."

Jamie had the decency to look apologetic. "Sorry."

"I don't mind if you want to go for a dive – especially if you've got that scale – but _tell_ me next time! I thought you'd drowned or something!"

"What scale?" Monty frowned.

"Hey, is that the mermaid scale you were talking about?" Cupcake lit up.

But Jamie wasn't really paying attention. Instead, his expression turned to one of realisation, before swiftly morphing into something sad. "I'm sorry I scared you," he said. "I promise I'm fine."

"It's okay," Jack breathed. "It's fine, just… just don't go off on your own without telling someone, okay?"

"Okay. I really am sorry, though."

"I know," Jack ruffled his hair. Then, deciding that wasn't good enough, he hugged him again. His mind knew Jamie was safe, but his heart hadn't quite gotten the memo. He'd probably be a little high-strung for a while.

Jamie returned the hug this time, and let him hold it for as long as he needed.

"Hey, Sophie, didn't you get one of those scales, too?" Pippa asked, drawing their attention back to the rest of the kids.

Sophie's eyes widened, as if only just now realising that this would have been the perfect opportunity to use it.

"Let's go get it!" Jamie suggested. "We can go explore the bottom of the lake!" He paused, turning back to Jack. "If that's okay?"

Jack cracked a grin, though it felt a little forced. "Sounds like fun," he said. "And I'd feel better if two of you went down at a time instead of just one." Safety in numbers, and all that.

"I'll take Sophie back to the house to get it," Cupcake volunteered. Sophie, on her back, didn't protest.

Jack took the opportunity to retreat to the bank for a moment, letting the texture of the wood of his staff ground him. Jamie was safe. He wasn't dead. No one had drowned.

"Are you okay?" Jamie hedged, coming to sit beside him.

Jack let out a long breath. "Yeah," he replied. "I just need a minute." Jamie opened his mouth to add something, but Jack was quick to cut him off, smiling. "You don't need to keep apologising. I know you didn't mean it."

"Still…"

"I'm glad you're okay, kiddo."

"We got the scale!" Cupcake's voice called.

Jack and Jamie looked over their shoulders to see her running over to them, Sophie still clinging to her back like a baby possum.

"Come on," Jack jumped to his feet and offered a hand to Jamie. "We've got a lake to explore."


	119. Displaced

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was one of the hardest I've ever had to write. If there's anything canonically incorrect (or historically) that is entirely my fault and I am very sorry.
> 
> HUGE thank you to SonYukiGoku'Sister (who requested this chapter), Guest, Britt30, Pyropesy, and Ravenna Frost for all their help. Without these guys, this chapter would not exist.
> 
> Disclaimed.

The tiny wooden centre doll smiled mischievously up at him as Jack slowly twirled it around in his hand. It was strange, now that he thought about it, that North had had it ready to give him after they'd defeated Pitch. There hadn't been enough time to make it in that short gap, so the only logical explanation was that he'd had it prepared earlier. But how had he known? Even _Jack_ hadn't known what his centre was until right near the end. For North to have had time to make the doll, he would have had to have known in much greater advance than that. And though he was grateful for the gesture, Jack wasn't quite sure he felt about the fact that North had successfully analysed him as easily and quickly as he had; that North seemed to know him better than he knew himself.

It wasn't a bad feeling, he decided. Just… different. Unsettling. It was daunting, after being alone for so long, for someone to know him so keenly and so much deeper than the front he put up. But at the same time he found it wasn't anywhere near as bad as his mind made him think it should be. It was actually kind of nice, to be so understood. And North always had good intentions.

Now that he was thinking about it, Jack realised that it was more than just his centre that North was freakishly intuitive about. With the exception of Bunny, the Guardians had all been pretty welcoming when they'd first dropped the bombshell on him, but none of them had really _gotten_ him back then. Except for North. Sure, at first, it seemed like he was just as clueless as the rest of them, but Jack could see now that even back then, at their first official meeting – before it, even – North understood who he was so well that even Jack himself was unable to keep up with the introspection. Because, when it came down to it, he _did_ want to be a Guardian. Maybe not in the same sense that they operated, but he loved kids and he wanted to bring them joy and keep them safe. He always had. He just hadn't understood that there was more to being a Guardian than he'd thought. Heck, even the kidnapping thing had been cleverly tailored to him; it was probably the best way they could have gotten him to the Pole – chances were he never would have gone willingly – and in hindsight shoving someone into a sack and tossing them through a magic portal was totally something he would have done had their positions been reversed.

Jack stopped twirling the doll and stared down at it. How had North known? How had he known more about him than even Jack did? Jack just couldn't figure it out. Before the Pitch thing they'd never even spoken to each other. Was he really that predictable? Or was North just way more observant than he looked?

 _Only one way to find out_ , he mused, and slid off the rafter he'd been reclining on to go in search of North. It was a good few months before the real busy season kicked in, so finding the guy shouldn't be too difficult; he'd be more likely to stay in one place for more than two seconds, at the very least. Jack headed towards North's office first – the most likely place to find him – whilst mentally cataloguing all the other places worth searching in case he wasn't there.

"North?" he called, gently pushing open the door and sticking his head inside. The room was as interesting as it always was, but there was no sign of North. Jack stood in the doorway, frowning. Where else, then? The Workshop? The sleigh? The kitchen? Maybe Phil knew.

He turned to leave, but paused when he caught sight of a glimmer of light reflecting off something on the worktable. Between a stack of paper and an ice car was a single snow globe. Now, this wasn't unusual in and of itself; there were plenty of snow globes at the Pole. What was unusual was that this one had been left where the elves could potentially find it. And, as Jack got closer, he realised that wasn't the only thing unusual about it. All of the other snow globes he'd seen had been red on the poles with golden décor. This snow globe, however, was gold and silver.

"That's weird," he muttered, picking up the snow globe and holding it to eye level. Besides the colour, it didn't really look any different to the others. Was it a new kind of snow globe? Or was North just trying out a new colour scheme? He squinted at it, as if that would make it answer his questions. It didn't.

With a shrug, he put it back.

Or, at least, he would have if the door hadn't chosen that moment to slam open.

Jack startled badly, his gaze shooting over to the doorway where North had just entered.

"North!" he cried. In his shock, the snow globe slipped from his fingers. He scrambled to catch it, but too late. It shattered against the floorboards, the sound echoing through the room like a gunshot. Instantly a portal burst into life, a strange monochromatic spiral that in no way resembled the usual portals.

Jack only had a second to realise what had happened and, turning to North, catch a glimpse of his panicked expression before he was sucked in and his vision blackened.

 

* * *

 

Jack's first thought upon his return to consciousness was that he was roughly 90% sure that he'd been turned into a noodle. Only 90%, though, because he couldn't quite bring himself to peel his face off the pile of snow he was lying in to check. His whole body felt uncomfortably stretched and achy. In fact, if he was being completely honest, it was tempting to just lie there for the rest of eternity. What had even happened, anyway?

 _Right_ , he thought as the memories came flooding back. _That weird snow globe_.

His eyes shot open. The snow globe! Where had it sent him?!

It took considerably more effort than it should have for Jack to push himself to his knees and by the time he'd achieved it he was feeling weaker and tireder than he'd ever been (though he was thankful to note that he was not, in fact, a noodle). With an exhausted sigh, he scooted backwards until he was leaning against the trunk of a nearby tree. It didn't take more than a cursory glance to realise he was in some kind of forest, but there was nothing resembling any sort of civilisation in his line of sight, so he had no way of knowing _where_.

"Well," he murmured, "it shouldn't be too hard to figure out." As soon as he started feeling a little less lethargic he'd fly up, get his bearings, and head back to the Pole. North was probably worried. Or mad. Or both.

The sound of crunching snow and a deep, accented voice had Jack cracking his eyes open again. Funny, he didn't remember closing them. The sun was further overhead than he remembered too. He must have fallen asleep.

Groggily, he rolled his head to the side in time to see a large, pale horse appear from between the trees. Mounted on its back was a tall goateed man in furred clothing. Two swords were strapped at his waist (and honestly who went around carrying swords in this day and age? Besides North, of course). Jack couldn't help but think him incredibly familiar, although he couldn't quite say why.

The horse snorted, its breath steaming in the frigid air, and turned its head until it had fixed its stare on Jack. It came to an abrupt halt, stomping the ground with its front hoof. The rider said something in what sounded like Russian, giving a light kick in an attempt to get his horse moving again, but it adamantly refused.

Jack watched in mild amusement. Animals had always been able to see him, but it was very rare for them to be so fixated on him. "Go on," he urged quietly. "Better get moving before he gets mad."

The horse tossed its head and stomped again. A very clear 'no' if ever Jack had seen one.

The man huffed in frustration, muttering something else, before following his horse's gaze to where Jack was still sitting. Jack met his gaze evenly, knowing full well that he might as well have not been there at all in the man's eyes.

And so it was with great confusion that he watched the man's eyes widen as he dismounted. Was he sitting on something and he simply hadn't realised? Or maybe there was something important about the tree he was currently using as to support himself?

The man spoke again, tone softer than it had been before, never once taking his eyes off the spot where Jack sat. Jack lolled his head to the side, trying to find whatever it was that had so captured his attention, but all he could see were snow and trees. Nothing even remotely interesting. He forced his attention back to the man, who was speaking again, both hands held in front of him in a clear show of peace.

"What is he looking at?" Jack frowned. Was he sitting on a rabbit or something? He shifted slightly, but he didn't feel any tell-tale lumps.

"English?" the man tried.

Jack stared at him.

"Do you speak English?" he tried again.

A befuddled smirk stretched Jack's face. "Trees don't speak. English or otherwise." Dryads could talk though, but that was another matter. And he couldn't see any dryads in the immediate vicinity.

As if in response, the man smiled to match his own. "Do they not? Perhaps you are simply not listening." He waved a hand flippantly. "Is no matter. I was not asking tree."

Jack was starting to get the creeping suspicion that he might possibly be visible to this man. But surely that was ridiculous. He was an _adult_.

Tentatively, because he _needed_ to make sure, he asked, "Are… Are you talking to me?"

"I do not see anyone else here, do you?"

Jack openly gaped at him. This guy could _see him?!_ Wasn't he a little old to believe in spirits? Not that Jack was complaining, mind.

"What is your name, boy?" the man pulled Jack from his thoughts.

Jack frowned. How could he believe but not know who he was? Well, he supposed it was possible. "Jack Frost."

"Well, Jack, what has one as young as yourself alone in middle of woods, hm?"

Or maybe not. Just what was going on here? "Just taking a rest before I figure out where I am," he said anyway.

"You are lost?" the man's smile slipped.

"Um, kinda." But it wasn't like it was going to take him long to sort it out. He just needed to find the energy to get up first.

"Where is your home?"

Jack mulled over his answer. The closest thing he had to a home was the town of Burgess, but even that wasn't a home in its traditional sense. He didn't have a residence there, or family (except the Bennetts, of course, but that was different). The North Pole was closer to being a 'home' but it wasn't really. It was North's home. He just liked to visit.

He was taking too long to respond. The man was starting to look concerned and… sympathetic?

"I don't… I mean, that's not important," Jack hastily replied. "I'm trying to get to my friend's place."

The expression on the man's face didn't waver. "And where would that be?"

"…To the north."

The man turned to what Jack presumed was the north, as if hoping to see where Jack was trying to go. "There is nothing to the north for a good while," he said at length, and Jack wondered if he'd already known that or somehow gleaned it by staring off into the distance. "Come, I am on journey to retrieve something that was stolen from me. Perhaps we find where you are going, yes?"

He offered a hand to help him up and, grateful, Jack accepted. The bone-deep weariness was no better than it had been before. In fact, it felt worse now that he was on his feet, but it was hard to judge. Leaning heavily on his staff and hyperaware of the man's gaze watching him carefully, Jack allowed himself to be led over to the horse.

Most horses weren't too thrilled by him – he was too cold – but this one didn't seem to mind. It gave him a nudge with its nose in greeting, and he reached up a hand to stroke its neck in return.

"This is Petrov," the man introduced. "He is good horse, very reliable. We have been friends for many a year!"

Petrov snorted in a way that could have either been agreement or contradiction, enticing a large grin from the man. "And I," he continued, "am Nicholas St. North!" The way he said it made it apparent that he was expecting some sort of reaction. Recognition, most likely; possibly also some degree of awe.

Well, Jack definitely recognised it.

He inhaled sharply, tripping and nearly toppling over in his surprise. In any other situation he would have vehemently denied it, but it all clicked into place so smoothly. _That_ was why he'd found the man so familiar. He had North's… well, _everything_. Right down to that twinkle in his eye that North had called wonder.

Nicholas St. North reached out to steady him, face a canvas of surprise. This was obviously not the reaction he had been going for. "Are you alright?" he asked. He sounded apologetic.

"I– um– I'm–" Jack struggled to form anything even remotely coherent. How was this possible?! He had no doubts in his mind that the guy was telling the truth – he _was_ North – but he looked decades younger. And human. The only way this could be possible was if…

Oh.

Oh no.

Well, he'd been right. That hadn't been an ordinary snow globe. Somehow, it had sent him back in time. From the looks of things, to before North had become a Guardian. Which also explained why he felt so terrible; he didn't have any believers, and Guardians _depended_ on believers for their power, for their entire existence. But in that case, how was he still here? Without any believers, shouldn't he have faded away?

 _No_ , he corrected himself, staring at Nicholas, _I have at least one_. He decidedly did not think about the possibility of having been sent back to a time when _no one_ believed in him.

"Jack?" Nicholas hedged.

"I'm fine," Jack managed, but it sounded strangled and fake even to his own ears. Nicholas' expression confirmed that the lie hadn't been lost on him, either. What was he going to do? This was no longer as simple as heading back to the Workshop. Even if he managed to get there, there wasn't anything there for him to find yet! He needed help. Unfortunately, the only one he could think of that would be able to give it to him was someone who didn't like him very much: Father Time.

Of course, there was the possibility that because he was now in the past Father Time wouldn't know him and therefore wouldn't have any sort of grudge against him, but a linear flow of time never seemed to have applied to the guy. He didn't experience time in the same way as everyone else – Jack could see him one day and then the next it had been 50 years in Father Time's eyes.

Nicholas gave him a long, searching look, as if believing that if he stared long enough he could figure out what Jack was hiding. Thankfully, after a moment he turned away and mounted Petrov. "Come, let us be off!" he said, patting the space behind him.

Jack shook his turbulent thoughts away. He had several hundred years to figure this out. There was no point dwelling on it and stressing himself out. He'd stick with Nicholas for a while and then set out to look for Father Time. Maybe he was still living in the Bermuda Triangle. It would make the trip uncomfortable – that area wasn't exactly Jack's idea of a vacation – but it was a necessary evil if he didn't want to wait half a millennium to catch up with his own time. Assuming he could still fly in his weakened state at all.

Plastering a smile on his face, Jack stepped forward and swung himself up onto Petrov's back with more difficulty than he normally would have. The wind, though still friendly towards him, didn't know him yet, and even if it had, Jack suspected that his current lack of believers would negate any real help it could provide. He said nothing, though, and, a muttered word to Petrov later, they were on their way.

For ten long minutes, Petrov carried them through the snow-covered forest. The silence stretched on uncomfortably, and Jack struggled to come up with a conversation starter even as he fought to keep his weary head from falling onto Nicholas' back. Finally, he recalled something Nicholas had briefly mentioned and he seized it.

"So what was stolen?" he asked.

Nicholas turned slightly to glance back at him. "It is book – very valuable manuscript. Originally, I stole it from local lord, but he thought he could steal it back! He does not yet realise just who he is dealing with, I am sure."

Jack stared at the back of his head, struggling to reconcile this North and the one he knew. His North had mentioned having been a bandit before he became a Guardian, and Jack had heard a few stories here and there, both from North himself and second-hand from some of the others. So really he shouldn't have been as surprised as he was that Nicholas was a thief. He probably would have been on his own Naughty List, which was an amusing thought.

Given that he was travelling with the guy, Nicholas probably expected Jack to help him retrieve this twice-stolen manuscript, but Jack couldn't quite say he was comfortable with that. There was a big difference between playing a few tricks on people or stealing out of necessity and stealing simply because you felt like it.

"I'm sure," Jack half-heartedly agreed.

"And what of you?" Nicholas prompted. "Tell me about this friend of yours! Where to the north will we find them?"

A small smile graced Jack's face at the thought of telling this younger North about the him from the future, but the reminder that he had been seriously displaced and that heading to the Pole was no longer an option quickly wiped it away.

"You know," he sighed, "I remembered that they're not there anymore." Well, not yet, but that was too complicated to bother getting into. "There's someone else who can probably help me, but I don't know where to find them."

Nicholas looked back at him again, an expression on his face that was somewhere between sad, concerned, and hopeful. "Perhaps I know of them."

Jack gave a laugh that was more of an exhale than anything. "I seriously doubt it."

"Is possible! You will not know unless you try."

While he made a good point, Jack still held his tongue. He couldn't risk it. If he wasn't careful, his actions here could change the future. And while that wasn't necessarily a bad thing, he didn't want to jeopardise his current life. Things were finally going well for him. To have that taken away because he'd been careless was… unthinkable. Unacceptable.

Whatever Nicholas thought of his silence, he said nothing of it, turning to face the front once more.

They delved back into silence, but it only lasted a fraction of the time it had stretched on for the first time before Nicholas suddenly announced, "Have you ever heard of time I fought an entire regiment of cavalry with steak knife? While I was eating!"

Jack raised a brow. Somehow, that didn't sound as unbelievable as he thought it probably should have. "No," he replied. And Nicholas promptly began reciting the tale to him, Jack's grin growing wider with every word. This was the North he knew. _Some things never change, I guess_ , he mused.

It felt like hours went by before they finally came across something beyond rocks, trees, and snow. In the distance, Jack could just make out what looked like some sort of small camp. It was hard to see between the trees, but there was a definite glow of a campfire standing out against all the white, and if he listened closely, he thought he could hear gruff voices.

Nicholas brought Petrov to a halt well out of sight of the camp. The horse remained perfectly still, refraining from even shaking his head, as if he could sense the need for absolute silence.

"What is it?" Jack murmured needlessly. Just because Nicholas could somehow see him, didn't mean that the people ahead, whoever they were, would be able to too.

"They are the men nobleman sent to retrieve manuscript," Nicholas whispered back.

Jack's eyes widened and he strained to get a better look at them. But they were too far away to see clearly. How Nicholas could tell was beyond him. "So what's the plan?"

Nicholas dismounted, being careful not to accidentally dislodge Jack as he did so. "I will go and get back manuscript. You and Petrov stay here and wait for me, yes?"

Well, at least he didn't expect Jack to doing any stealing himself. But it still didn't sit right with him. Not just because there was no real reason for Nicholas to steal the manuscript, but because it all felt too easy. But, then, these were just men, not spirits with magical powers, and Nicholas was a renowned bandit with the makings of a legend. And if he really had fought off a regiment with a bent steak knife, whilst eating or not, then this should be a walk in the park.

"Uh, okay," Jack agreed, accepting the reins when Nicholas handed them to him.

"I will not be long." He added something to Petrov in Russian, drew his swords, and began creeping through the forest towards the camp. From the looks of things he was trying to be stealthy, but it was a bit hard when he was wearing bright red in a world of white.

Jack followed him with his eyes as best he could. After several minutes he disappeared from sight, but shortly after the sound of shouting and clanging metal reached him and he knew Nicholas had begun his assault on the camp. Petrov shifted in agitation, as if wanting to join the fray. Jack felt antsy as well. Despite not really wanting to join in, he felt like he should be doing something to help.

After a minute or two, the shouting and clanging died away and there was silence. Jack waited uneasily, expecting to see Nicholas walking towards him triumphantly, book in hand, at any second. But the only movement was the steady swaying of branches in the breeze. He waited a minute longer, but still nothing.

"Okay, we've given him enough time," Jack decided. "What do you say we go see what's holding him up, Petrov?"

He had no idea if Petrov understood English – or Russian, for that matter – but Petrov gave a low nicker as if in agreement and started a slow walk, giving the camp a wide berth but getting closer all the same.

It wasn't long before Jack could start making out details. The camp had been set up in a small clearing, with a fire in the middle and all manner of things strewn about in the snow that had obviously gotten caught up in Nicholas' attack. There were four men in the clearing including Nicholas. The others were all tall and intimidating fellows that looked like they'd been drinking plenty of protein shakes, even with their fur coats concealing much of their bodies. All of them bore weapons except for the one North had pinned against his chest, one sword at his throat and the other pointed towards the other three men. The others were still, with angry faces and making threatening gestures as they spoke darkly. Probably telling Nicholas to let their friend go.

It was a standoff if ever Jack had seen one. Nicholas' only bargaining tool was the guy he'd captured. It surely wouldn't be long before someone had to give.

Jack cast his gaze around the rest of the clearing and quickly spotted a satchel that had been thrown halfway across the clearing at some point in the scuffle. The flap had come open, and inside Jack could make out what looked like a thick rectangle wrapped in cloth.

"The manuscript," he realised.

No one was paying any attention to it, and even if they had been, Jack doubted any of them would be able to see him except Nicholas and Petrov. With significantly less grace than he was accustomed to, Jack slid down from the saddle, leaning heavily on the horse and his staff until he could regain his balance. He was really not liking the weakness that came with having only one believer. If this is what the Guardians had felt like during that Easter…

"Wait here," he told Petrov, before starting to slink into the camp.

Petrov stomped his hoof in protest, but didn't follow after him. Smart horse. It was almost too easy to grab the satchel and carry it back to Petrov. The men on the other side of the clearing were so caught up in themselves that none of them even blinked in his direction. Even Nicholas didn't appear to have noticed. Not that Jack was going to complain.

Now there was just the matter of Nicholas and the standoff to deal with. If he was going to do something, he knew he would have to do it soon; the mercenaries were getting noticeably agitated. Jack gestured for Petrov to go back the way they had come and, not bothering to check that the horse had understood let alone obeyed, started towards the men.

It didn't take long for Nicholas to spot him. His eyes went as wide as saucers and he somehow managed to convey ' _What are you doing I said STAY'_ with his expression alone. Jack would have been suitably cowed if not for the fact that he never had been one for obedience. Lucky for Nicholas.

With a roll of his eyes, Jack reached down and scooped up a handful of snow. "And here I thought the great Nicholas St. North could handle a few mercenaries without needing any help," he smirked.

The men had caught onto Nicholas' apparent shock and – dare Jack say it – fear, and their sinister mutterings fell away to silence. Two of them turned to look in Jack's direction, but as predicted they saw nothing.

Jack simply grinned, tossed the snowball he'd made in one hand, and then pegged it in the meanest looking guy's face. The man stumbled backwards in surprise, spluttering and cursing as he frantically wiped the remnants of snow from his face. The other one was immediately on high alert, sword raised as they tried to scope out this unseen threat.

Jack scooped up some more snow and tossed it at one of them. It hit its mark (even weakened his aim was as good as ever) and, like the first mercenary, this guy blubbered and raged, barking something that Jack figured was an order to show himself.

 _I wouldn't even if I could_ , Jack thought, readying another handful of snow that he was fully prepared to dump down someone's shirt. Or at least splatter across the back of someone's neck given that he couldn't actually come into direct contact with them.

The two uncaptured mercenaries were losing their patience very, very quickly. The one Jack had struck first – the presumed leader – barked something to his companion and menacingly strode across the clearing, searching for Jack. The other returned his attention to Nicholas, sword levelled at his throat and speaking in a demanding tone. Nicholas said something back with a cheeky grin and suddenly shoved his hostage at the man. The hostage and his friend were taken by surprise and both fell heavily to the snow.

Jack leapt to the side just in time to avoid being walked through by the leader of the mercenaries. He jabbed at the ground with the end of his staff, intending to freeze the ground and slip him up, but nothing happened.

"Damn, no powers," he grumbled.

Nicholas, thankfully, was in no way hindered. In less than thirty seconds he had disarmed the two mercenaries who were still struggling to get back to their feet. The leader, hearing the commotion, spun back around. His scowl darkened as he realised what had happened and, sword held at the ready, he charged towards Nicholas, who easily blocked the attack with his swords.

Unfortunately, the distraction gave the other two time to sort themselves out and get up.

"Oh no you don't," Jack growled, sprinting towards their discarded swords and using his staff to fling them away before they could reach them. The men froze at the sight of their swords moving on their own, giving each other bewildered and slightly frightened looks. After a moment's hesitation they tried again, and again Jack pushed them out of reach. If all he could do was delay them and buy Nicholas some time to deal with the leader then that was what he would do.

It turned out that he didn't need to wait for long. There was a sharp cry from the duel that made Jack and the two other mercenaries turn just as Nicholas slammed the hilt of one of his swords into his opponent's temple. The mercenary crumpled to the ground and didn't move.

Distracted, Jack wasn't prepared for the remaining two's third attempt to reclaim their weapons. They succeeded and with a fierce cry they charged Nicholas, who stood tall and ready. Jack watched in awe as he expertly fended them off, matching them blow for blow with such ease that Jack wondered how they had managed to steal back the manuscript in the first place. Or, for that matter, how they'd managed to get themselves into that standoff they'd been in when Jack and Petrov had gotten impatient.

Still, though, Jack felt he shouldn't just stand there and watch. Nicholas might have been every bit the expert fighter Jack had heard he was, but two against one just wasn't fair. Stooping for more snow, Jack prepared the biggest snowball he could muster and, holding it above his head in both hands, ran forward and dropped it on one of the mercenaries' head just as he made to strike Nicholas.

The man gave a surprised shriek and spun around, blade whipping though the air and very narrowly avoiding slicing Jack in half. A second later Nicholas kicked him in the back and sent him sprawling face-first into the snow. Nicholas spared Jack a grin and a wink before giving the remaining man his full attention.

But the downed man didn't stay down for long. In a matter of moments he was back on his feet, and ready to continue his attack against Nicholas.

"Don't even think about it!" Jack growled, going for the snowball tactic again. But the man had apparently decided his invisible assailant wasn't worth worrying about and, brushing the excess snow from his face with a growl, continued on towards Nicholas.

"Stop!" Jack cried. Without even realising what he was doing he jumped in front of him in an attempt to stop him, but the man simply walked through him. Jack clutched his chest as the familiar ache spread through him.

" _You're invisible, mate,"_ Bunny's words echoed through his mind, " _it's like you don't even exist._ "

 _No_ , Jack countered. He may not be visible, or even tangible, but he did exist, and he wasn't helpless. There was someone here who could see him. "Nicholas! Behind you!"

Nicholas spun around at Jack's shout, metal clanging against metal as he raised his sword up to meet his assailant's. The other mercenary seized the opportunity the distraction allowed him. He raised his sword at Nicholas' unprotected back, ready to run him through. There was no way Jack would be able to stop him, and even if he shouted a warning, there was no way Nicholas would be able to react quick enough, either.

"North!"

There was a loud neigh and Petrov burst from the tree line, barrelling into the man before he even had a chance to move. Dazed, he tried to get back up, but Petrov was having none of that. He planted a hoof in the centre of the mercenary's back and shoved him back down with a whinny that sounded something like the horse equivalent of 'no'.

Nicholas quickly incapacitated his current opponent and spun around with a mighty grin. "Petrov!" he beamed, no doubt realising what had happened.

Petrov tossed his mane proudly. Jack decided that Petrov was his officially his favourite horse. Besides Sleipnir, of course. It was hard to beat a magical eight-legged horse that could fly.

"Jack!" Nicholas suddenly spun around to face him, giving him a once-over with his eyes. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," Jack grinned. "You?"

"Me? Of course!" he gave Jack a hearty slap on the back that nearly dislodged all of Jack's organs. "You have very good aim, my boy! And snowballs! Surprisingly affective!"

"And fun," Jack laughed. "Nothing like a good old-fashioned snowball fight. Even if your opponents don't notice the game."

It was clear from the side glance he snuck as he ushered Jack over to Petrov that Nicholas was at least suspicious about the fact that none of the mercenaries had been able to see him, but for whatever reason didn't comment on it. Jack decided it was best not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"Come," Nicholas said, "let us find manuscript and be on our way!"

"One step ahead of you," Jack replied, lifting the wrapped book from the satchel hanging from Petrov's saddle.

Nicholas accepted it from him with a triumphant 'ha!'. Then, with a look that could only be called fond, he gestured for them to leave. Jack didn't protest. He didn't want to be around when the mercenaries woke up. They weren't going to be happy, to say the least.

 

* * *

 

"Say, Jack," Nicholas began after half an hour of silent riding, "if we do not find this person you are looking for, you are more than welcome to come back with me to my camp."

A touched smile spread across Jack's face. He probably could stay with North, he realised. For a little while, anyway. Once Nicholas became a Guardian he would probably have to go into hiding until time caught up with him again, especially when the past (future?) version of him came into being. But as tempting as it was, he knew it wasn't an option. What kind of life was staying in hiding for centuries? And besides, he had people waiting for him. _North_ was waiting for him. So it wouldn't even be saying goodbye. Not really.

"Thank you," he said after a time, "but I can't."

"I understand," Nicholas replied, a touch wistfully.

Jack fully expected conversation to peter away after that, but as if feeling the need to fill the silence, Nicholas plunged into another tale about one of his many adventures, and Jack listened with rapt attention.

It was well into one of these stories and the sun was starting to set when movement in the corner of his eye caught Jack's attention. There was a man standing between the trees to their left, watching them silently. Nicholas didn't seem to have noticed, and Petrov gave no indication that he had, either.

The man stared Jack in the eye before turning and disappearing further into the forest, glancing back over his shoulder only once. Jack stared after him for several long seconds, biting his lip in indecision. The man would not wait long, he knew, but he really didn't want to say goodbye. He'd thought he'd have more time than this.

With a resigned sigh, Jack jumped down from the saddle, landing in the snow with almost no sound at all. Petrov and Nicholas noticed his absence immediately, stopping and looking back at him.

"Jack?" Nicholas questioned.

Jack glanced towards the trees. The man was nowhere in sight. "I have to go," he said, forcing his attention back to Nicholas and Petrov.

"Go?" Nicholas frowned. "Go where?"

"Home."

His eyes softened with understanding. "You have found your way, then?"

"Yeah," Jack smiled. "My guide is here."

"I hope we will meet again, then, my young friend."

"We will." He knew it with absolute certainty. They already had, technically. Deciding not to draw it out any longer – farewells were hard enough as it was – Jack gave Nicholas and Petrov a parting wave and followed after the man he had spotted earlier. Nicholas and Petrov did not follow.

"It's about time," the man grumbled, arms crossed, when Jack finally caught up to him.

"Sorry, I wanted to say goodbye," Jack shrugged. "How did you know?"

Father Time smoothed imaginary wrinkles from his robe. "A time anomaly is hard to miss. It was as obvious to me as if someone had set off an alarm right in my ear."

Well, that certainly made things easy. "So you'll take me back?"

"To be perfectly honest I should just leave you here as punishment for all those stunts you've pulled over the years – and have yet to pull –"

Jack winced. This was definitely a later version of Father Time then.

"–but that could do irreparable damage to the time stream, and I did promise North I would bring you back in one piece."

Jack perked up at the name. "North?" Had North sent him?

"Yes, North, young one. He came to see me centuries ago – although in relation to this time stream it hasn't even happened yet – to tell me he'd made a prototype for a long-distance globe portal that had sucked you in. He had a strong suspicion about where it had taken you. And here you are."

"Here I am," Jack agreed, but his mind was whirling. So North had remembered him? Even after all those years? He reached into his hoodie pocket and pulled out the little centre doll. Well, perhaps that explained a few things.

Father Time cleared the distance between them in two strides and pulled a pocket watch from around his neck. Without a word, he placed his free hand on Jack's shoulder. As the colours of the forest started to blur and a feeling of being stretched overcame him, Jack forced his eyes shut and tried to think of what he was going to say to North when he got back to his present. After everything, they probably had a lot to catch up on.


	120. Displaced Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to popular demand, here is a short second part of the previous chapter, from North's perspective :)
> 
> Fun fact: the first half of this chapter was written in a Kmart carpark
> 
> Disclaimed.

North had been having a reasonably good day. Toy production was meeting schedule, the elves hadn't blown anything up yet, and Jack, who he'd been told was around somewhere, had so far refrained from harassing the yetis or rallying the elves. Not that Jack was _ever_ a bother, pranks or no. He was like the son North had never had, and he saw much of himself in the boy. Perhaps his younger self a touch more than currently, but many similarities still remained.

He had almost returned to his office, intent on finishing up his latest toy design, when he caught sight of the door. It was ajar. And he was positive he'd closed it when he'd left to prevent the elves getting their hands on things they shouldn't be.

Closing the distance in three quick strides, North slammed the door open, ready to catch them in the act of licking his ice models again. But there were no elves. Just Jack, who startled badly at the noise and flailed in an attempt to catch whatever it was he'd been holding.

"North!" he gasped, and the thing slipped out of reach and shattered on the floorboards. Instantly a monochromatic portal burst into existence.

North felt his breath catch. His eyes widened in realisation, meeting Jack's equally surprised ones for barely a second before he was sucked in. The portal collapsed on itself and vanished, just as quickly as it had come.

Oh, this was bad. Very, very bad.

As with all his snow globes, the globe itself became the portal, and so there were no remnants of it on the floor. But North didn't need evidence to know exactly which snow globe that had been.

"Stupid, stupid!" he cursed himself. "You knew it was dangerous and still you left it lying around where anyone could get it!"

It was a prototype portal he'd been working on in his free time. The end goal was to be able to achieve interstellar, long-distance travel, beyond the scope of what his regular globes could achieve. He'd been hoping, when he'd perfected it, that they might even be able to go visit Manny. Unfortunately, he hadn't had much success, and feared for where his latest dud might have taken Jack.

"Think! _Think!_ " He started pacing. "There must be way to fix this!"

Maybe he could recreate the dud? It was possible it might open up somewhere completely different, but if there was even the slightest chance that it could bring back Jack, it was worth a shot.

All thoughts of toy making thrown to the metaphorical wind, North swept from the room and headed towards the storeroom for his magical supplies. What had he used exactly? He was sure he'd written it down somewhere.

Ten minutes later saw him returning to his office, arms laden with what he hoped was everything he'd need. He'd barely laid them all out on a free patch of worktable when a fierce wind picked up. The force of it made North's eyes water and he shut them tightly. Around him he could hear things being knocked from shelves and tables alike.

As soon as it died down, North reopened his eyes, sorely wishing he kept is swords in his office. But, as it turned out, he didn't need them. Because there, standing in the middle of the room and looking decidedly disorientated, was Jack Frost.

"Jack!" North gaped, dropping the tool he'd been holding and rushing over. He scooped Jack up in a tight hug. Jack staggered upon being released and held a hand up to his forehead.

"Hello again," he grinned.

"What happened? Where did portal take you? And how did you return?"

Jack blinked at the onslaught of questions. "It wasn't so much a where but a when." He glanced over his shoulder and frowned. "Father Time came and got me, but I guess he didn't stick around. He said you told him where to find me."

Now it was North's turn to frown. The last time he'd spoken with Father Time was at least a century before Jack's Guardianship, and he had decidedly never mentioned Jack to him.

…Which probably meant he hadn't done it yet. He briefly wondered what it was like to not experience time linearly, and made a mental note to go see Father Time and let him know that he'd need a favour. Or had needed a favour.

Jack was looking at him strangely.

"What is it?" North asked, coming back to himself.

"You knew me right from the start. How come you never told me?"

North blinked, suddenly remembering that day back before he'd met Ombric when he'd come across a strange boy in the woods. He hadn't thought on that for a long time. Not before he'd learned exactly who Jack Frost was, and only sporadically since. It had been an exciting day, and he'd grown quite fond of the boy. By the end of it, though, he'd suspected the boy had been something more than human. And he'd been right.

"I was wondering when that would happen for you," he said at length. "To think it was me who caused it!"

"Yeah… maybe don't leave unstable portals lying around," Jack grinned wryly.

"I have certainly learned lesson!"

Jack shifted his weight slightly. "You haven't answered my question."

North heaved a sigh and sat down on his work stool. Jack didn't move.

"It is complicated," North began carefully. "For many years after strange boy disappeared into woods, I thought of him – of you – and wondered if I would see you again. But then things got busy. I met Ombric, became Guardian. Always busy. And incident –" he waved one hand through the air "–slipped from my mind."

Jack listened intently. From the look on his face it was clear he had no idea where North was going with this but he made no move to interrupt.

"And then, of course, you became spirit," North continued, "and I knew only your name. It did not even cross my mind that you might be same boy I met all those years ago; after all, you were new to the world, and I did not know that boy in woods was not from that time."

"And Jack is a pretty common name," Jack added.

North nodded in agreement. "It was from Bunny that I first got description of you. And not a flattering one at that."

Jack rolled his eyes.

"It would be long time after that before I saw you for myself."

"Christmas Eve, 1792."

North's brow rose. Jack remembered the precise date?

"Well," Jack corrected, "that was when you first saw me. Truthfully, I'd been tailing you since the '50s."

"I did not know," North confessed.

Jack shrugged. North took it as his cue to continue.

"It took me a while to realise why this new Jack Frost was so familiar to me. And when I remembered boy, much confusion! But when I thought about it, I concluded that time travel must have been involved; I could think of no other explanation."

Jack frowned, his expression hard to read but decidedly unhappy. "So why didn't you talk to me anyway?" He sounded so tentative, almost scared to hear the answer. It broke North's heart.

North cast his gaze down to his hands. "I do not know. I have no excuse. But, Jack," and here he looked Jack in the eye and held his gaze, "it was not because of anything you did or did not do. There are many things in my life that I regret, but my failure to reach out to you is one of the biggest."

Jack was the first to avert his eyes, fiddling with the hem of his hoodie.

"And then you were chosen, and I knew you would make excellent Guardian! After all, you looked out for me, a man you did not even know, so why not children too?"

Jack turned back to him, a small smile on his face. But it was a far cry from the carefree grin he usually sported.

"And after that, what happened in past did not seem so important, no? I was getting to know you as you were, and it seemed pointless to tell you of a meeting that you knew nothing about. I decided I would just watch and see; it would happen eventually."

It was hard to say whether this answer satisfied Jack or not. North knew that it was a poor excuse, and had their situations been reversed he doubted it would ease his mind.

"Jack," he stood, placing his hands on Jack's scrawny shoulders. "You are the best thing that has happened to me – to Guardians – in many long years. I am sorry that I hurt you. Then and now."

Jack's eyes glistened with unshed tears. North said nothing of them, and instead pulled him into a deep hug (albeit slightly less bone-crushing than normal).

"Well, we're friends now, right? That's gotta count for something," Jack eventually said, voice muffled by North's chest.

"Yes, and I will always be here for you. Because you are more than just friend, more than Guardian," he stepped back, holding Jack at arm's length. "You are family."

Jack gave him a watery smile, a little closer to his usual ones.

"Come!" North suddenly bellowed, starting to usher Jack towards the door. "I believe Boris has baked cake this morning. Maybe elves have left us some! And while we eat I will answer any questions you have."

Jack made no protests. Just as well; the boy didn't seem to be putting on much weight, despite any and all attempts to fatten him up a bit. Tooth would throw a fit if she ever found out that North was giving her precious Sweet Tooth sugar, but what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

Later, he would head down to the Bermuda Triangle and pay Father Time a visit. It wouldn't do to cause a temporal paradox. Besides, _this_ was where Jack Frost belonged: in the present with the people who loved him most.


	121. Defiance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (The pun version of this chapter's title is Deathiance in case any of you were interested)
> 
> This chapter was requested by Guest. It is now late and I must sleep but enjoy!

The connection between winter and death was one that couldn't be denied, even in Jack's mind. Winter was a time when the world slowed down; the landscape changed, in some places became completely barren, the weather was often hostile, the cold clung to everything it could reach and seemed to sap all the warmth from it, and a combination of all of this was a recipe for disaster. It was no accident that winter and death were often associated, even if such a comparison had become less common as time went on.

But that was winter. And, as Mother Nature had once told him, Jack may have been winter but winter wasn't him. Jack's winter was a very different story: it was bright and fun, a promise for good times rather than hardships. Nevertheless, where winter lurked, so too did death.

It was a rare occurrence for Jack Frost to encounter Death's embodiment, not least because Jack went well out of his way to avoid the latter. He had no qualms about rearranging an entire day's plans simply because he thought he spotted a familiar dark cloak or the shine of a scythe between the trees. It wasn't that he was worried Death would try anything – he was fairly sure his status as both a nature spirit and a Guardian granted him some considerable immunity – but this reassurance did nothing to calm his nerves when faced with such an ominous presence. Death had always made him uncomfortable.

There were some days, however, when it simply wasn't possible to turn the other way and pretend he hadn't seen anything. Today was one of those days.

A shadowy movement, like the flutter of a cloak, darted across Jack's peripheral vision and he stopped in his tracks, arm still poised to throw the snowball in his hand. His gaze instinctively sought out the source. There! On the street corner–!

Something cold slammed against his cheek. Jack startled, attention forcefully returned to the ongoing fight. He took less than a second to confirm that it was Jamie who had thrown the snowball before his gaze once again sought out the figure he was so certain he'd seen. But the street corner was vacant. If anyone had been there, they were gone now.

"Jack?"

The game around him had fallen away, and the group of teens were watching him with open concern. Jack plastered on an apologetic smile and tried to pretend that the unease that had settled over him wasn't real. After all, it couldn't possibly be who he'd thought it had been. He was just being paranoid.

"Sorry, thought I saw someone," he said.

"Saw who?" Jamie asked, eyes darting between Jack and the vacant street corner.

'An acquaintance' was probably not an accurate description. It implied neutrality, which Jack felt was decidedly not what their relationship (or lack thereof) could be described as. "Just someone I'd rather not talk to." _And who I would prefer stayed well away from you guys._

The teens didn't seem to like this response, if the suspicious looks they were giving him were anything to go by. Not wanting to let it ruin the fun, Jack lobbed the snowball he was still holding at Pippa, who responded with one of her own, and in a matter of moments the park went back to being a warzone. Eventually, the incident slipped from his mind completely. But not for long.

Throughout the day, as soon as he thought he might have simply imagined it, Jack would spot the same hooded figure in the corner of his eye. Always distant, but always there. And it was obvious that they were watching. He knew he was becoming increasingly antsy as the day drew on, and the teens were starting to pick up on it and become antsy themselves, but somehow telling them that the embodiment of death was stalking them just didn't seem like a very good idea. But _why_ would Death suddenly take such an interest?

And then it dawned on him.

Death wasn't just here in Burgess for no reason, and he definitely wasn't lurking around in the corners of Jack's vision to unsettle him. He was here for his job. And his job somehow involved one of the kids.

 _Not on my watch_ , Jack swore, sending a glare in Death's direction that he hoped conveyed all the protective fury he was feeling. No one threatened kids and got away with it when he was around. Especially these kids.

 

* * *

 

They were heading back towards Jamie's house when the very thing Jack had been paranoid about finally happened. The snowball war had long since ended, but the spirit of snowball war had carried on, although it had devolved into shoving handfuls of snow down each other's shirts and dropping large heaps of snow on each other's heads. So far, Jack had managed to avoid being attacked. Monty, however, was nowhere near as lucky.

A massive snowball was dumped onto the poor boy's head and he cried out in surprise, his attempts at wiping it away only managing to get it down his shirt.

"Ah! Cold! Cold!" he tugged frantically on his vest, trying to dislodge as much of the ice as he could, as he jumped up and down, as if that would somehow help. The others laughed good-naturedly and carried on trying to one-up each other, ultimately unconcerned.

Jack, too, didn't think anything of it until Monty's foot suddenly slid out from under him when he stepped on a particularly icy patch of ground. He teetered dangerously, and in his attempt to correct his balance his other foot slipped off the edge of the sidewalk. He staggered backwards, still trying to save himself from falling but unable to do anything but keep moving.

He finally came to a stop in the middle of the street when gravity eventually won, breathing heavily and shaking from the adrenaline. He visibly struggled to get to his feet, a combination of his shaking nerves and the icy road hindering his progress. Already the others were hurrying towards him, ready to help him up and make sure he was okay. A car horn drowned out their cries, and with rising horror Jack realised what was about to happen.

Death stood on the other side of the road, watching.

Wind whipped at the surrounding snowdrifts and nearly bowled the kids over as Jack launched himself forwards, pushing himself and the wind to go faster than they ever had before. All he could think of, all he could focus on, was the desperate need to reach Monty in time. Tyres screeched and skidded along the road. The kids screamed out.

Jack felt his hand clamp around the collar of Monty's vest and without a second thought launched them both towards the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. Behind them, the car swerved dangerously before finally coming to a halt a few hundred metres further up the road even as Jack and Monty tumbled painfully into the window of a shop. The glass, mercifully, held, and together they sagged heavily to the ground.

Jack let out a heavy breath, a hand on his chest. His heart was beating so forcefully he wondered how it hadn't burst yet. He rolled his head to the side. Monty was sprawled beside him, as white as a sheet.

"You okay?" Jack forced out.

Monty managed a shaky nod, but Jack didn't quite buy it. But he was forced to admit that badly shaken with a few bumps and bruises was infinitely better than dead.

The rest of the teens were already sprinting over to them, as well as the driver of the car – a middle aged man who looked equal parts furious and worried. Jack let his gaze drift over to where Death had been, only to find the spectre gone. Somehow, it wasn't as relieving as Jack felt it should have been.

 

* * *

 

Jack leaned against the trunk of a tree by his lake, head tilted back and eyes closed. It was night now, well after the kids had all returned home. He'd ensured they'd gotten there safely – particularly Monty, who would probably take a day or two to recover from the shock of it all – and then retreated back here. He wasn't sure why he lingered – there were other places in need of snow days – but he did. Maybe he would take a day or two to recover, too.

_'You should not have interfered.'_

Jack was on his feet in an instant, staff held defensively in front of him even as he strained his eyes in the darkness in search of the source of the voice. He didn't have to look hard; even now, Death's presence commanded Jack's attention. It was almost like he could _feel_ where the other was standing. Maybe he could.

"I'm a Guardian and he's my friend. I wasn't about to sit back and _watch_ ," Jack returned with no small amount of hostility. His instincts screamed at him to flee.

 _'Every creature has its time. You cannot protect all of them, and certainly not forever,'_ Death took a step towards him, emerging from the shadows between the trees. Jack resisted the urge to step back as they approached.

"Maybe not," he conceded, "but that won't stop me from trying."

 _'You would be wise to not obstruct my duties again, Jack Frost.'_ There was a noticeable level of enmity in Death's tone. They looked up at the night sky. The moon was completely blocked out by cloud cover. _'Perhaps I should take back what was so insultingly snatched from me. Your time is well overdue.'_

This time Jack did step back, only to find he'd unintentionally cornered himself against the tree he'd been leaning against earlier. He could try to flee, he knew, but it wouldn't stop Death for long if they truly sought to claim his soul.

Death reached out towards him. The wind tugged furiously at his hoodie, screaming at him to fly, but Jack found himself paralysed. Fear rooted him to the spot. Even if he could form a thought clear enough, it was already too late.

"Am I interrupting something?"

Death's hand stilled, fingertips merely centimetres away from Jack's face, and turned towards the source of the voice. Jack, likewise, forced his head to turn. Standing a short distance away, deep in the shadows and surrounded by Nightmares, was Pitch Black.

Jack had never felt so relieved to see anyone in his entire life.

Death offered no response, but it had obviously been a rhetorical question. Without warning, they spun away, cloak flying with the movement.

 _'You will not escape me forever_ ,' they said, only loud enough for Jack to hear, and then disappeared into the darkness.

As soon as Death vanished from view, Jack sagged bonelessly against the tree and slid to the ground, closing his eyes and trying to remember how to breathe. Absently, he heard soft footsteps moving across the clearing before finally coming to a halt directly in front of him.

"Well, you're a pathetic sight. But, then, I suppose that's nothing new."

Jack didn't even have it in him to come up with a snarky retort. He forced his eyes open and looked up at his unlikely saviour. He'd expected to see a smirk on Pitch's face, and so was surprised to find him looking uncharacteristically serious.

"What are you doing here?" Jack found himself asking.

"I couldn't very well ignore a fear that strong. I came to find the source."

Jack weakly lifted his arms in a vague sort of gesture. "Ta-da."

Pitch crossed his arms, decidedly unimpressed. Silence stretched between them.

"Thank you," Jack said at length. "If you hadn't turned up…" He hated to think what might have happened. He very much doubted Death would have restrained themself like they did that first time, especially when the moon wasn't in sight.

Pitch's face contorted strangely and he turned away. "I was merely investigating a powerful fear, nothing more," he said. "If I'd known it was you I would have stayed home."

Jack couldn't stop the smile that forced its way onto his face. He highly doubted Pitch hadn't known exactly whose fear he'd sensed, but he was already pushing his luck as it was so he kept his teasing remark to himself and let Pitch maintain the façade he'd been working increasingly hard to uphold.

Somehow, though, it seemed like Pitch knew exactly what he was thinking because he took one look at Jack's expression and scowled. "I have things to do," he said. They sounded like parting words, but Pitch made no obvious attempts to leave.

In fact, it wouldn't be for nearly half an hour before they went their separate ways, and it wouldn't be Pitch who left first.


	122. Guarding Belief Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was having a really hard time coming up with ideas for the remaining requests so this one is actually from my own ideas list... about halfway through I realised I had no idea what to do for this, either. So hey, if you can come up with anything for the second part I'm all ears! XD
> 
> Also! There is currently a poll up on my profile page over on FFN (https://www.fanfiction.net/u/4703887/) regarding the future of this series, so if you have the time/are interested/whatever I'd be grateful if you'd check it out. Don't feel obligated, though :)
> 
> Disclaimed.

"And this is Great Aunt Maggie," Jamie, large photo album spread across his lap, pointed at a photo of an elderly woman with a stern face but kind eyes. "She was grandma's oldest sister."

Jack leaned in for a closer look. Great Aunt Maggie looked a lot like Sophie (or the other way around), and Jack imagined that the resemblance would have been even stronger had Maggie not been as old as she was when the photo had been taken.

"Great Aunt June–" Jamie's finger trailed over to the next photo, which depicted another older woman, though she must have been younger than Maggie "–is the youngest. She's in a nursing home now."

On Jamie's other side, Sophie scrunched up her face in distaste. "Whenever we visit her she calls me by mom's name," she said.

"She calls mom grandma's name, too. It's not her fault; she gets confused," Jamie countered.

Jack smiled to himself at the exchange. His eyes drifted to the next photo. Maggie, June, and another woman who looked even more like Sophie than Maggie did smiled up at him from where they were sitting around a table. "I take it this is grandma?" Jack guessed.

Jamie followed his gaze. "Yep! That's grandma. She and grandpa live about an hour from here."

It was a weird feeling, looking at all these photos of people he'd never met and seeing features he recognised, however distantly. More than once Jack had to remind himself that these weren't just Jamie and Sophie's relatives; they were _his_ , too. His sister's descendents. It was almost enough to make him want to cry, though out of sadness or joy he wasn't sure.

Jamie turned the page. The next spread was a series of faded wedding photos. The bride, Jack quickly realised, must have been Jamie's grandmother.

"Grandpa used to tell us that his family didn't approve of grandma," Jamie said, sounding far more amused than the statement probably warranted. "He said she wasn't very 'ladylike' when she was younger. Grandma used to hit him with the dishcloth when he started telling us stuff like that."

Jack chuckled at the thought. He could definitely picture her doing that. There was a twinkle in her eyes that he was well accustomed to. "I like her already," he said.

Jamie grinned up at him. "You should come with us next time we go see them!" His smile fell fractionally. "…She probably won't be able to see you, but at least you'll get to meet her… kinda…"

Some of the old loneliness that used to cling to him welled up in his chest, but even though it was painful, Jack knew he would never pass up the opportunity to meet the family – his family – even if it would be one-sided. He opened his mouth to say as much to Jamie, but was cut off before he could begin.

"Jamie?"

Jack, Jamie, and Sophie all started at the new voice, heads shooting over to the doorway of the lounge room. Mrs Bennett was watching them – or, rather, Jamie – with a strange expression on her face. There was no way to tell how long she'd been standing there.

"Yeah, mom?"

"Who are you talking to?"

Jamie hesitated, glancing first at Jack and then down at Sophie. If Mrs Bennett had heard even a fragment of their conversation, it would be obvious that he hadn't been talking to Sophie.

"Um," he said at length with none of his usual confidence, "Jack Frost."

Mrs Bennett said nothing for a long moment, expression unreadable. Finally, she heaved a sigh and crossed the room to them. Jack jumped up and out of the way before she could sit on (or through) him.

"Jamie," she started, then stopped and turned to Sophie. "Soph, would you mind giving us a moment?"

Sophie's expression clearly said she did very much mind but she got up anyway. She looked back at Jack over her shoulder as she headed for the stairs. Jack fidgeted, not sure if he should follow her or stay.

"Jamie, we've talked about this," Mrs Bennett said as soon as Sophie was out of sight. There was no anger in her voice, only concern. "Did you have that talk with the school counsellor?"

"Yeah," Jamie picked at the edge of the photo album, still open on his lap.

"And did it help?"

Jamie raised his gaze to meet Jack's. Jack suddenly felt like he was intruding on something he shouldn't be.

"Do you want me to go?" he asked, careful to phrase it in a way that would allow Jamie to answer nonverbally.

But from the looks of things, Jamie didn't have an answer to give.

"Jamie?" Mrs Bennett tried again when the silence stretched on.

It was possible Jack's presence was making this harder than it needed to be. Jamie was fourteen now – a lot of kids his age had already stopped believing or were starting to do so. Jamie and his friends were outliers in that respect. And as much as Jack was grateful for their belief, and as much as he never wanted them to _stop_ believing, he started to wonder if he was being selfish. Jamie was a popular kid, but the older he got the more he would be teased for still believing, and the more concerned people would become that he was seeing and talking to someone who didn't seem to be there. And wasn't losing belief a part of growing up? Who was he to stand in the way of that, no matter how much it hurt?

Some of his inner turmoil must have shown on his face because Jamie was frowning at him.

"Jamie, talk to me," Mrs Bennett pressed.

"Um," Jack gestured weekly. "I'll give you two some space."

And, not knowing if this was possibly the last time Jamie would ever see him, Jack slipped out of the room.

 

* * *

 

"Princess Barbie or Pop Star Barbie?" Sophie asked, punctuating her question by holding up the dolls in question.

Jack forced his distracted mind away from the lounge room and looked both dolls over critically. "Princess Barbie," he decided. He held out his hand and Sophie happily passed him the doll.

From downstairs came a muffled shout. Jack tensed. This was his fault.

"Oh! I got the dreamhouse for my birthday!" Sophie suddenly exclaimed, louder than necessary. She shuffled across the room on her knees to where the absurdly pink dollhouse sat in the corner. "Did I show you yet?"

She has shown it to him exactly eight times. He'd counted. "You know, I can't remember. Why don't you show me again?"

It was another fifteen minutes before they heard anything else from downstairs, in which time Jack had been given an in-depth tour of the dreamhouse, and Pop Star Barbie and her plush toy minions had almost completed their mission of overthrowing Princess Barbie from the dreamhouse kingdom. Sophie's bedroom door clicked open and Jamie, eyes downcast, slipped inside, closing it behind him. Jack and Sophie lowered the dolls and watched silently as he crossed the room to sit with them. For a long moment, no one spoke.

"Mom and some of my teachers are worried that my belief in you and the others is more than just an 'overactive imagination'," Jamie started, finally lifting his head to look Jack in the eye.

"I know," Jack said.

"I guess I can understand where they're coming from, but you're _real!_ Just because they don't believe doesn't mean I should just _stop!_ "

Sophie twirled Pop Star Barbie between her hands. "Well why not just make them believe?"

It sounded so easy when she put it like that, as if Jack could just freeze a window and write 'Hi, I'm Jack Frost' on it and it would work. Chances were if he did that poor Mrs Bennett would have a heart attack. Or think her house was haunted or something. Adults didn't react the way kids did, and adults had the capability to retaliate in a way kids couldn't. No matter how he thought about it, it wouldn't end well.

"It's not that easy, Soph," Jack sighed, hating himself for the way their faces fell. "Adults don't see the world the same way kids do."

"But what if you made it really obvious?" Jamie pressed. "Like what you did for me?"

"That was different. You _asked_ for that. Imagine if I'd just started freezing windows when you weren't expecting anything. You'd freak out, right?" When Jamie hesitated, he continued, "That's what it's like for adults, except they'll either try to rationalise it or they'll jump to the worst possible conclusion and that can get dangerous for everybody. And I'd really rather not give your mom a heart attack."

Jamie fiddled with the hem of his pants. He didn't say anything, but the look on his face was answer enough.

"Hey, don't make that face," Jack nudged him. "No one said you had to stop believing! You just have to be more careful about letting adults know you still believe."

Jamie nodded, but he was more disheartened than Jack had ever seen him. And, even if it was indirectly, Jack couldn't shake the thought that this was his fault.

 

* * *

 

It was too early to justify a snow day, so Jack settled for the next best thing. He flew down to land on the fence just as Jamie and Sophie were heading out the door on their way to school. Both their faces lit up at the sight of him, but Jamie's quickly reverted to something neutral as he no doubt remembered what had happened the previous day. Jack resisted the urge to sigh. It was painful for both of them, but what could he do?

"Bye, mom!" the kids called over their shoulders, and Jack quickly fell into step beside them as they headed down the road. It wasn't until they were out of sight of the house that Jamie let his façade slip away and properly acknowledged him.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"I thought I'd come walk you to school," Jack shrugged. He was aiming for 'this is totally a coincidence and has nothing to do with any conversations that might have been had yesterday', but judging from Jamie's knowing but grateful smile he hadn't quite achieved it.

Sophie, always surprisingly good at reading the mood, was quick to change the subject, and the rest of the walk was happily filled with idle chatter about an upcoming test she was 'absolutely not prepared for'. The melancholy that had settled over Jamie like a blanket was still there, though, and Jack was sure he wasn't the only one to notice.

The car was still in the driveway when Jack arrived back at the Bennett household; Mrs Bennett had yet to leave for work. She probably had a late shift that day, as she sometimes did. Jack stood by the mailbox and stared without really seeing. Jamie's troubled face had etched itself into his mind, and he had a feeling the knot of guilt that had tied itself around his heart wasn't about to undo itself any time soon. But what could he do about it? It had taken him three hundred years just to get a _child_ to believe! Adults weren't supposed to believe; that was just the way it was, and he hadn't needed the Guardians to tell him that for him to know. It was an impossible task. There was no point in trying to convince himself otherwise.

Scowling at himself, Jack flew up to Jamie's window and experimentally pushed against it. Unsurprisingly, it was locked. Jack huffed, positioning himself to lean against it.

"What were you even going to do if it wasn't?" he asked himself. His mind offered no answers. It didn't have one to give.

His eyes settled on one of Jamie's homemade Rainbow Quest posters. He'd become quite the artist over the years, and these were a vast improvement on the ones that had been there the first time Jack had entered the room. And yet, he found himself oddly missing the old ones. How long would it be before there would be no traces of childhood in this room? How long until even these new posters were taken down and replaced?

And what if Jamie did one day stop believing, whether on his own or because of pressure from social expectations? How far away was that day? What would Jack do if it ever came?

The sound of the front door opening jolted Jack from his spiralling thoughts, and he glanced down to see Mrs Bennett crossing the yard to the mailbox. She was a good woman, and an even better mother. The thought that she, like him, was unintentionally causing Jamie pain was horrible.

On a whim, Jack dropped back down to the ground as Mrs Bennett headed back into the house. Without really thinking about what he was doing, he hurried after her. She left no opening for him to slip in through as she shut the door, but there were benefits to not being believed in. Jack sucked in a breath and, before he could talk himself out of it, closed his eyes and stepped through her and into the house. Mrs Bennett didn't even notice, continuing through to the kitchen, ignorant. Jack placed a hand on his chest to reassure himself that he was still as solid as ever. Not a ghost. Not dead.

…Okay, _technically_ he was but that wasn't the point.

When he finally caught up with her, she was putting away the last of the dishes. Jack loitered in the kitchen doorway and tried not to feel like a stalker.

"Hey," he tried before he could even think to stop himself.

Mrs Bennett hung the dishcloth back on the oven handle. She didn't turn.

"Great, now I feel stupid."

What was he even doing? He _knew_ trying to make adults believe was a bad idea. He hadn't been kidding when he'd said he'd tried everything. Freezing things or writing messages for people didn't make people believe in Jack Frost, it made them think their houses were haunted or they were being attacked by demons. One attempt had failed so spectacularly that the person he'd been trying to make believe had ended up calling an exorcist. And he decidedly did not want a repeat of that.

He quickly stepped out of the way as Mrs Bennett left the room before following her through the house to the laundry. Jack watched her silently as she started putting clothes into the washing machine. After a moment of contemplation, he turned to the shelf and pulled down the detergent.

"Here," he said, holding it out to her.

Mrs Bennett didn't turn.

Rolling his eyes, because really what had he expected, he put it on the floor and slid it over to her. The detergent and Mrs Bennett both stopped when the former collided with her foot. Slowly, her gaze drifted down to it, then over to the shelf where it had been. With a wariness bordering on fear, she reached down to pick it up, scanning the room for any indication as to how it had gotten there.

Jack sighed. Scaring her had not been the intention. But, again, he should have expected that.

Eventually, Mrs Bennett returned to her chores, but it was obvious from the slight furrowing of her brow and the way she would glance around the room every so often that the incident was still fresh on her mind. Jack had the decency to feel guilty.

He left her then, when the voice in the back of his mind that kept telling him he was being creepy got too loud to ignore, and went up to Jamie's room, intending to escape through the window. But as he crossed the threshold, his eyes once again landed on the posters on the walls, and the stuffed rabbit on the bed, and he remembered Jamie's expression when he'd left that morning.

"Damn it, Jamie," he cursed, spinning on his heel and stomping back downstairs. "If this goes horribly wrong I'm blaming you."

He was going to do it. Somehow, impossibly, he was going to make an adult believe.


	123. Guarding Belief Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thank you to everyone who took a look at the poll, and to those of you who offered suggestions for this chapter! I was actually really trying to incorporate them but somehow... this happened instead ^^;

Things had decidedly not gone well. Jack had started off with a very basic plan: first he would alert Mrs Bennett to his presence, and then he would prompt her to connect him with the Jack Frost her kids often talked about. It certainly wasn't the best plan he'd ever come up with, and he'd expected a level of negative backlash, but this was far worse than he'd expected. As he sat on the kitchen counter and watched a tense Mrs Bennett whisper frantically into the phone, he was forced to acknowledge that while he'd definitely achieved part 1 of his plan, part 2 had, well, completely and utterly failed.

In hindsight, having objects seemingly move within reach of their own accord was less helpful and more terrifying. And because of his actions, poor Mrs Bennett was on the verge of a mental breakdown.

Oops.

"Hunh," Jack muttered, "I really do make a mess of everything."

He felt like he should apologise at the very least, but even if he screamed it right in her ear she wouldn't hear him. With a sigh, he slid off the counter. Well, at least he'd tried.

He turned to leave, but paused when his gaze fell on the fridge. Or, more precisely, the magnets on the fridge. _Alphabet_ magnets. Jack stood in contemplation for a long moment, trying to think of everything that could go wrong. He glanced back over his shoulder at Mrs Bennett. She was still on the phone, her back to him. She wouldn't see him do it.

Biting his lip and hoping he wasn't about to make everything worse, he quickly rearranged some of the letters until he'd spelled out a single word: _sorry_. There was no guarantee she would notice it at all, let alone realise what it meant, but it was better than nothing.

With one last look back at her, Jack left the room and headed upstairs to make his escape.

 

* * *

 

Over a week passed before Jack finally ventured back to Burgess. He'd been avoiding it, if he was honest – or rather avoiding the Bennetts, as much as it pained him to do so. But Jamie's sad face didn't leave him no matter how far he flew, and he would be lying if he said he wasn't curious to find out if his message had been received.

"Jack!"

The familiar call made him pause, and he flipped around midair, easily spotting Jamie and Sophie on the sidewalk below. They both looked pleased to see him. He only hoped it stayed that way.

"Hey," he flew down to meet them. "On your way home from school?"

"Yeah," they replied together.

Jack fell into step beside them, walking along fences and whatever else he could find. Without needing to be prompted, the kids started filling him in on the things he'd missed over the last week, including the results of Sophie's test, which she'd aced.

"And you said you weren't ready for it," Jack smirked, nudging her.

"It was easy," she replied, radiating satisfaction.

"Or maybe you're just really smart."

Before they knew it, they were back at the house, and conversation petered away as they stepped inside.

"We're home!" Jamie called as he and Sophie started tugging off their boots.

Mrs Bennett stuck her head through the lounge room doorway. "Did you have a good day?"

Jack studied her closely as the kids began reciting the highlights. There wasn't a trace of fear on her face now; probably the week without any incidents had been enough to calm her down. Either that or she'd rationalised it away, as adults were prone to do. Whatever the case, he was glad she was doing better, though he was still disappointed that he'd failed Jamie.

"Is it okay if we go to the park?" Jamie asked, dragging Jack from his thoughts.

"I don't mind. Just be back in time for dinner."

"Thanks, mom!"

"Do you want to take a snack with you?"

Jamie paused, foot poised half in his boot. The promise of food was enough to postpone his excitement, and he and Sophie rushed off towards the kitchen. Jack couldn't suppress a chuckle and followed after them.

By the time he caught up, Sophie had practically crawled into the pantry, and Jamie was staring into the fridge. Jack's eyes settled on the magnets on the fridge door. His apology was gone now – scattered by one of the Bennetts, no doubt. He wondered if Mrs Bennett had gotten the chance to see it or not.

Jamie pulled out a couple of juice boxes just as Sophie emerged triumphant with some snack-sized packets of chips. She tossed one to Jamie as he swung the door shut, and that was when Jack saw it. There, carefully concealed amongst a myriad of other letters and squished into near indecipherability, was: _wat do u wnt_.

There was no lack of letters, so that left Jack with two conclusions: either this was one freaky coincidence, or Mrs Bennett was going to great lengths to keep her reply to his apology as subtle as she possibly could.

"Jack?"

Jack's gaze darted over to Jamie and Sophie, who had at some point moved over to the doorway. "Hm?"

"You coming?"

"Yeah." He spared the fridge a final glance before heading back with them to the front door. The message probably wasn't going to go anywhere. He could reply to it later.

 

* * *

 

It wasn't till much later that Jack got the chance to respond. He'd spent the afternoon having a snowball war with the Burgess kids, and then he'd followed Jamie and Sophie back home again. He'd joined them at the table (or rather on the table, as sitting in a chair would have been obvious to Mrs Bennett) while they ate dinner, and then watched TV with them until finally Mrs Bennett had called for them to go get ready for bed. While they reluctantly headed upstairs, Jack snuck back into the kitchen.

He'd been pondering over what to say all afternoon, so it took only a matter of seconds to replace Mrs Bennett's ' _wat do u wnt'_ with ' _to help'_. Because, really, that was the crux of it. All he wanted to do was help; not just Jamie, but her too. She was worried about Jamie, and she was probably worried about Sophie, too, who had never bothered to hide the fact that she was conversing with someone seemingly no one else could see.

Nodding in satisfaction, he headed upstairs to say goodnight to his favourite kids.

 

* * *

 

_R u ghst?_

Jack stared at the latest message on the fridge door, conflicted. In a sense, he supposed, he probably was a ghost, but at the same time he was very, very different. It was probably more accurate to define himself as a…

 _Spirit_ , he corrected. As a non-believer, the distinction between a ghost and a spirit would probably be lost on Mrs Bennett, but it wasn't exactly something he could explain with alphabet magnets, if not least because it would be a little hard to conceal that. Not that Jamie and Sophie were around to see it right now – they'd already headed off to school.

He waited around the house after that. Mrs Bennett was folding laundry upstairs, but he figured she would come in for lunch or a drink or something eventually. After ten minutes of staring at the ceiling, though, Jack quickly grew bored and decided to wait in Jamie's room. At least there he would have something to do.

When the sound of footsteps passed by the door an hour or two later, Jack quickly plopped the book he'd been reading down on Jamie's bed and hurried after her. As he'd hoped, Mrs Bennett only made one detour before heading into the kitchen. He loitered in the doorway, watching her.

At first she ignored the fridge completely, instead pulling a cup down from one of the cupboards and filling it with tap water. Jack fidgeted, willing her to turn around. Finally, _finally_ , she did. And very nearly dropped her glass when she realised he'd replied again. With deliberately slow movements, she placed her cup down on the sink and carefully scanned the room. Her gaze brushed over Jack like he wasn't even there. For all intents and purposes he wasn't. Then, unable to see him, she made her way over to the fridge and started shifting the letters.

Jack edged a little closer, positioning himself so he could see what she was doing.

 _Wat dffrnc?_ he read.

How the heck was he supposed to explain it? Writing 'Jack Frost' would definitely be stretching 'subtle' if she didn't see it before the kids got home…

…but maybe there was another way.

Leaving the kitchen, Jack hurried back upstairs to Jamie's room. He stood just in from the doorway, eyes roving the space as he tried to think where Jamie would keep his old drawings, assuming he kept them at all. He supposed he could just take one from the wall, but there were only a few of them displayed these days, and Jamie was sure to notice the loss.

Feeling a little like a thief, Jack moved over to the desk and opened the bottom drawer; he was sure he'd seen Jamie stash some sketchbooks in there. As he'd hoped, there were several books and a stack of loose papers sitting in the drawer. He left the sketchbooks alone – he wasn't about to tear anything out of them, and it felt like too much of a breach of privacy to go through them without permission anyway. Instead, he focused on the loose sheets. Magical creatures, portraits of his friends, fan art, but none of that was what he was looking for. He was on the verge of giving up when he spotted a folded square wedged in the bottom of the drawer, poking out from under one of the sketchbooks. Putting the stack down, Jack carefully pried it free and unfolded it.

It was an old drawing, and Jack recognised it immediately. A wave of nostalgia washed over him. It was the one Jamie had done of the sled ride Jack had inflicted on him. Jamie had been so proud of it and so excited by the event that he'd kept it up by his bed for months, only taking it down once just after Pitch had been defeated to add one detail. Jack smiled at the pencil version of himself flying above Jamie on his sled. It was perfect. He quickly refolded it and slipped it in his pocket (it wouldn't do for Mrs Bennett to see a flying piece of paper, after all) before hurrying back downstairs.

When he reached the kitchen, it was to find Mrs Bennett had already gone off somewhere, but that was probably for the best. He checked briefly to make sure she wasn't about to reappear, before taking the drawing, still folded, and sticking it to the fridge with two magnets: J and F.

 

* * *

 

His combined anticipation and anxiety kept Jack away for another week. More than once he would start towards Burgess before abruptly changing his mind again. What if she didn't understand? What if she thought the 'Jack Frost' Jamie had been so enthralled with over the last few years was actually some kind of evil spirit? What if she _did_ understand? The uncertainty was unbearable, but the thought of actually physically going to find out for himself was somehow worse.

The anticipation won out in the end, and he finally caved and headed home. And if his pace was a little slower than usual, well, there was no one there to call him out on it.

It was early evening by the time he arrived at the Bennett house. Jamie's window opened at his nudge, but the boy himself was nowhere to be seen. Probably, he and Sophie had gone out to the park with their friends. He made a mental note to stop by if they hadn't already come home by the time he left.

Mrs Bennett was in the middle of cooking dinner when Jack found her. With her back to him, he couldn't see what she was making, but he could hear the sizzling of something frying and water bubbling. He crept a little closer and peered over her shoulder, but it did very little to answer his questions. There was a pot of pasta boiling away on one of the back burners, and the pan she was twirling her wooden spoon through was filled with some kind of tomato-y vegetable and meat sauce. Spaghetti, maybe?

"I have no idea what you're making but damn it smells good," he said lightly.

Mrs Bennett tensed dramatically. Before Jack even had the chance to process the change, she swung around with a shriek and smacked the sauce-covered spoon right into his eye.

Jack staggered backwards, clutching his eye. God, what did she put in that stuff? It was _burning_! And not least because it was ridiculously hot. Was he going to go blind because of this? How would he ever explain it to the others? How would he ever _live it down?!_ He could see it now. Bunny would ask why his depth perception had been shot to hell and he'd have to say "Oh, I complimented Mrs B's cooking and she shoved molten pasta sauce in my eye".

Mrs Bennett was still screaming. Jack joined her, though for different reasons.

"Do you treat all your uncles like this or am I getting special treatment?!" he cried, frantically trying to wipe the sauce out of his eye with his sleeve.

"Who are you?!" she screeched, holding her spoon defensively like she was preparing to whack him again. "How did you get in here?!"

Jack took a large step backwards, trying to get out of range of the deadly weapon. He warily lifted his sleeve from his face and looked at it. There were sauce stains on it now, but from the way his eye still stung and watered there was more where that came from.

"Answer me!"

Jack froze comically, his one still-functioning eye locking onto the very angry and very panicked woman standing before him. Slowly, the pieces started clicking into place. She could see him. She was _looking at him_. She'd attacked him with a spoon but she could _see him!_ She also seemed to have no idea who he was.

"…Which one do you want me to answer first?" he found his voice.

"How did you get in here?!"

Jack really wished she'd gone with 'who are you'; she _really_ wasn't going to like the answer to this one. "…Through Jamie's window," he confessed.

Mrs Bennett took another swing at him. Seeing it coming, Jack quickly dove out of the way, putting as much distance between them as he possibly could without leaving the room. Was she actually trying to kill him?

"Okay," he said gently, "why don't you just put the spoon down, and we'll talk about this like civilised… people."

"Who are you?! What do you want?!" She did not put the spoon down. And from the looks of things, she wasn't about to calm down enough to listen to him.

Jack shot a quick glance at the fridge. The drawing he'd left there was gone, but there was no message to replace it. Cautiously, keeping his eyes on Mrs Bennett, he side-stepped over to it and slowly formed two words: _to help_.

Mrs Bennett stared with wide eyes, her gaze darting from the magnets to Jack and back again. Her spoon-wielding arm lowered until it hung limply at her side. Pasta sauce dripped onto the floor but she paid it no heed.

"Jack Frost," she whispered.

"For the record," Jack said, "I do _not_ nip people's noses."

"I… you…" she floundered, unable to form a coherent sentence. Finally, she managed a rather strangled sounding, "How?"

"It's… a long story. Maybe you should sit down."

 

* * *

 

 

He told her everything. He started with an abridged and highly selective retelling of how he'd become what he was, then briefly mentioned his life during those three hundred years, defeating Pitch, becoming a Guardian, gaining his first believers…

Throughout it all, Mrs Bennett was mostly quiet. Every now and then she would interrupt to ask a question, and at one point she had to check on her cooking (Jack kept well away), but it was hard to judge how she was taking it. She'd calmed down a lot from when he'd first spooked her, and she commented a few times when he mentioned something or other that had been part of her slowly putting two and two together.

"I don't think I would have believed it if not for all the unexplained occurrences over the last few weeks," she finally confessed, carrying the pot of pasta over to the sink to strain it. "I was starting to think the house was haunted!"

"I really didn't mean to freak you out like that," Jack grimaced.

"Do it again and you'll regret it," she shook the wooden spoon at him.

Jack leaned back as far as he could without falling off the stool he was sitting on. "Yes, ma'am!"

She softened then, placing the spoon back in the pot and sitting it on the edge of the sink. "How's your eye?"

Jack rubbed it with his hand. "Well, I'm not blind." Just as well.

She smiled apologetically. "So you're really Jack Frost, huh?"

"Yeah."

"It's a lot to take in."

"Yeah," he repeated. But even as confused and shaken as she was, he at least had the comfort of knowing that she did genuinely believe he existed. She could see him, after all.

"And all those other ones – Santa and the Tooth Fairy are really real, too."

"Crazy, huh?"

Mrs Bennett sighed. "Part of me thinks that there's no way any of this can be true, but you're sitting right there and you know all these things that there's no way you could know second-hand. Not to mention you froze the stool."

Jack's gaze shot downwards. Yes, he confirmed, he had indeed at some point covered the stool with frost. "Uh, it'll melt?" he said meekly. "Sorry."

Mrs Bennett waved flippantly and turned back to her pot. "I think it's going to take some time to really process everything," she told him after a moment.

Jack had expected as much. It was a lot to come to terms with, especially for an adult. Her entire belief about what was real and what wasn't had been upheaved. "I understand." He slid off the stool and back to his feet. "I'll give you some time to think."

Mrs Bennett turned around, surprised. "You're not staying for dinner?"

Jack stared at her. "You want me to stay for dinner?" It was such an absurdly _normal_ thing to do that it somehow felt like the weirdest thing he'd ever heard.

"Well from what I can make out you're a good friend of Jamie and Sophie's." She looked him up and down. "And from the looks of things you could use a good meal. Do you have anywhere to spend the night?"

Jack knew he should say something, but he suddenly found himself speechless. In less than half an hour she'd done a complete reversal: from mama bear to mother hen. "You do realise that we met properly like half an hour ago, right?"

"What kind of mother would I be if I let a kid go out in the cold like that?"

"I _am_ the cold," Jack couldn't help but point out. "And I'm also older than you."

"Not physically you're not."

"There's no way I'm going to win, is there?"

"I'm glad we agree on that."

Despite himself, Jack couldn't help but laugh. What had he gotten himself into? As if one Tooth wasn't bad enough.

At the other end of the house, the front door clicked open.

"We're home!" Sophie's voice drifted down the hall.

Mrs Bennett gave Jack a long look, as if daring him to try and escape, before calling out to her children, "Dinner's almost ready! Go wash your hands and come set the table please!"

"Got it!" Jamie replied. The sound of thumping feed up the stairs was proof enough that they were doing as they were told.

Less than five minutes later they were barging into the kitchen, just as Mrs Bennett was starting to serve dinner.

Jamie and Sophie spotted Jack immediately, both staring at him with questioning expressions. It was clear they wanted to say something, but with their mom right there they restrained themselves. Jack offered them a wave.

"Hey," he grinned. "Molten spaghetti for dinner. Smells great, though."

Mrs Bennett looked over her shoulder at the three of them. "We're going to need cutlery," she prompted.

Jamie and Sophie broke out of their stupor and hurried to do as they were told – Jamie getting the cutlery and Sophie finding the placemats and cups. With them distracted, Mrs Bennett gave Jack a mock glare for his comment. Jack grinned back without a hint of remorse.

As soon as the table was set, Mrs Bennett passed the kids their bowls, before moving over to join them at the table with two more. She stared at the three set places.

"We're missing a place setting," she said.

Jamie and Sophie frowned at her. "No we're not."

"Yes we are." She put one bowl down on the third placemat and went to retrieve another one, which she placed alongside the bowl of pasta beside Jamie. "Sit," she then ordered, pointing at it as she went back for more cutlery and another cup.

Jamie and Sophie stared at her like she was mad before glancing helplessly at Jack, who had yet to move.

"Who's the fourth person?" Jamie asked carefully.

Mrs Bennett raised a brow at him as she finished setting the last place. "Who do you think?" She turned to Jack. "Well?"

Jack rolled his eyes and plonked himself down in the chair. "As long as it stays out of my eye this time," he huffed.

"You're never going to let that go, are you?"

"Nope." Jack scooped up a forkful of pasta and blew on it. It tasted even better than it smelled. "This is really good," he said, looking up. Only to realise that Jamie and Sophie seemed to have malfunctioned.

The both of them were openly gaping at him and their mom, who was either oblivious or completely ignoring their reaction. He couldn't help the grin that split his face. If only he had a camera on him.

Mrs Bennett finally looked up, perhaps noticing that her children weren't eating. She stared at them for a long moment before, "What?"

"Um," Sophie worked her jaw. It was plain as day to Jack that she wanted to ask if she could see him, but without outright asking. Jamie looked like he was going to die.

"I think they're dying," Jack said. "Their brains have overheated. I told you the spaghetti was molten."

"I don't see what the problem is," Mrs Bennett replied. "It's not like they haven't known you for years. How am I the one handling this well and _they're_ the ones freaking out?"

"To be fair you did freak out too."

"True."

"Jack," Jamie whispered. His face was so pale his complexion almost matched Jack's. "She can see you."

"Um, yep, I did notice that," Jack grinned. He took another bite of pasta.

" _How?_ "

Jack exchanged a glance with Mrs Bennett. "It's a long story," they said.


	124. Agent George

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. 2 things:
> 
> 1\. Super sorry for the late update. And to make things worse, even after working on it for over a week now I still hate this chapter. I was gonna double post to make up for it but I can't see myself getting another one written quickly and you've waited long enough. I will still post another chapter this month though, so don't worry about missing one :)
> 
> 2\. Requests are officially open again! Before submitting a request (either by review or PM) PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING:
> 
> * There are only 20 (TWENTY) available spots left, and it's first come first served, so get in quick!
> 
> * Once all spots have been filled, requests will be CLOSED PERMANENTLY. You will know when the spots have been filled by looking at the STORY SUMMARY: IF IT SAYS 'Requests closed' PLEASE DO NOT SUBMIT ANY REQUESTS. You may need to refresh the page if you've had it open for a long time.
> 
> * PLEASE DO NOT SUBMIT ANY REQUESTS IF THE SUMMARY SAYS REQUESTS CLOSED. Seriously. For the last millennia it has said 'Requests temporarily on hold' and people have still been sending requests through. Please do not do that. It's really awful having to turn you guys away, especially when you have such good ideas!
> 
> Got it? Good. On to the chapter!
> 
> EDIT: I FORGOT TO MENTION! Grayceene on deviantART drew fanart! It's amazing! (grayceene.deviantart.com/art/The-Night-of-Stualness-509490313)

There was something terrible happening across the world. Maybe not _quite_ as bad as Pitch's attempts for world domination and the destruction of everything good, but it was pretty damn close. Someone, or something, was stealing penguins.

Jack had barely managed to force himself to stay long enough to hear the entire broadcast before he'd shot off towards Antarctica. It seemed like the targets were only penguins in zoos, but how could he be sure? Was there even anyone monitoring wild penguins? Would it be noticed if they were taken too? The thought of anything happening to his colony was completely unacceptable.

He made it in record time, and was beyond relieved to see that his penguins were still there, waddling around, huddling together, lazing about, just like always. They all perked up as he came in to land amidst them.

"You guys okay?" he asked, trying to check them over even as their attempts at a physical greeting made it difficult. "No suspicious people or anything come after you?"

They made their usual noises at him, which he tried to copy, and he took that as a sign that they were fine. He started to relax and let himself be swarmed by them, until he realised there was one face in the crowd he couldn't see.

"Where's George?" he asked, straightening up and trying to peer over the heads of the ones closest to him. "George?! You here, buddy?!"

But George didn't reply. He wasn't there. He was _gone_.

Panicked, Jack grabbed the nearest penguin. "Where'd he go, Beth? Do you know?!"

Beth squawked.

"What does that _mean?!"_ Was it a yes or a no? Was it something else entirely? Why hadn't he tried harder to learn penguin?! "I have to go look for him!" He turned to go but froze. What if he left now and the penguin thief got the rest of them? But what could he do? He couldn't stay _and_ search for George! And he wasn't going to take them with him if he was going anywhere _near_ the penguin-thief.

An idea struck him. Pressing his fingers to his mouth he let out the loudest whistle he could muster. The penguins chorused in response, much to his amusement. Now he just had to wait.

Thankfully, it wasn't long before he spotted Frostwind flying towards them, and moments later he was landing just beyond the mass of penguins.

"Frostwind!" Jack flew over to join him. "Hi, sorry, I have a big favour to ask you." When Frostwind huffed in acknowledgement, he continued, "I need you to keep an eye on these guys for me, okay? If anyone or anything suspicious comes, chase it off. And if you can't or it's too dangerous, come get me immediately. Got it?"

Frostwind nodded his understanding. And just as well, because he was quickly swept up in a crowd of interested penguins.

"Okay," Jack muttered. "You guys be good for Frostwind! I'll be back as soon as I can!" Hopefully with George in tow.

 

* * *

 

It had been a while since George had been called for a mission. He wasn't entirely sure how he felt about it; he'd been enjoying kicking back and relaxing in his quasi-retirement. But if they needed him, he would always answer the call.

He'd been given his mission brief on the way: an octopus bent on revenge against penguins, whom he blamed for his poor treatment, was stealing penguins from zoos across the globe. There was already a team from the North Wind on the case, but George's agency had felt the need to send in one of their own. And for good reason. So far, the North Wind had failed in all their attempts at stopping this… Dave.

The transport dropped him off at what had been identified as Dave's base: a remote island covered in forest. The only sign of activity was at the port, where a large submarine had been docked. This was exactly what he was looking for, but it would be senseless to go in without a plan. The North Wind team were supposedly around somewhere; perhaps it would be best to rendezvous with them.

George glanced down the ridge to the bay. The octopi looked to be preparing to set off. He would need to act fast. Making a split second decision, he shot off towards it. Hopefully the North Wind were already aboard. If not, well, he'd never needed them before.

With the octopi preoccupied with last minute checks, it was a piece of cake to slip through one of the open hatches and sneak inside. Now all he had to do was find the imprisoned penguins and stop Dave before he could go through with whatever it was he intended to do with the Medusa Serum. The agency hadn't quite gotten that far with their intel.

The hallways were crawling with Dave's minions. If he'd been a smaller penguin it might have been possible for him to just slip by, but as it was he was forced to leave a trail of knocked out octopi in his wake. It simply meant he would have to move faster if he didn't want to get caught.

George picked up the pace, rounding a corner, and nearly fell over as he skidded to a halt to avoid crashing into another creature. It was a penguin: small (tiny compared to him), kind of dopey looking, but with a determined glint in its eyes.

The tiny penguin blinked up at him in surprise. "Hello," he said.

"Hello," George replied.

"Sorry, can't stay and chat," the little penguin told him, already navigating around him, "I have to save my friends!"

Well, this could prove useful. "You know where the penguins are being kept?" George asked, hurrying to catch up to him.

"Yes, it's just up this way!"

"What about Dave?"

"I dunno," the little penguin frowned. "Probably nearby."

It was a start at least.

"I'm Private," the little penguin introduced after a beat, then looked up expectantly at George.

On a mission, it was standard protocol to use fake names or code names. It seemed this kid was either in a similar line of work to him, or whoever named him had weird tastes. "George," George returned. It wasn't his real name, but it was the one Jack had been addressing him with for his entire life, so he supposed it was simultaneously the truth and a lie.

Private nodded in satisfaction, uttering a pleasant, "Nice to meet you, George!" just as they cleared the bend and came across a swarm of octopi.

George slapped his wing over Private's beak and shoved them both back in time to avoid getting spotted. There were too many for them to take on. They would need a diversion if they wanted to slip past unnoticed.

He turned to Private. "If I distract them, do you think you can sneak past and get to your friends?" he whispered.

"What about you?"

"I'll be fine. I'm a professional." He poked his head back around the corner. He was fairly confident he could outrun them. "As soon as the way is clear, get to those penguins and find a way to free them. I'll handle Dave."

Private gave a sharp, determined nod. George decided he liked this kid. Without wasting another second, George jumped out into the open.

"Over here, you walking seafood platters!" he called. As he'd hoped, the octopi snapped to attention. "Come and get me!"

They charged, and George shot off in the opposite direction, sliding along the polished floor on his stomach. _Good luck, kid_.

Private watched them go for a long moment before hurrying off to do his part. He would not let his brothers or his new friend down.

 

* * *

 

Jack had looked _everywhere_. He'd swung by Jamie's place just long enough to gather all the information on the thefts they could find on the internet, and then Jack had taken off again, checking all the zoos he could think of, and all the places a penguin-napper might stash them, but he'd found _nothing_. No penguins, no thief, and no George. The world was a big place. By the time he would manage to search the entire planet, well… it would certainly take him much longer than the average penguin's lifespan.

With a dejected sigh, Jack slumped down on the edge of a store roof. It was warm here, but he couldn't bring himself to care. "Damn it, George, where are you?" he muttered. What if he couldn't find him? What if he couldn't find any of the missing penguins? It seemed an impossible thought that George would just be _gone_.

"If you're out there, buddy, I could really use a hint."

Across the street, the TVs in the electronics store all shifted to display breaking news. It was hard to see from that distance, but the reporter looked ridiculously excited. Interested despite his concerns, Jack flew over for a better look.

There was no sound, but it turned out to be unnecessary. Jack quickly took in the caption ( _Live: PENGUINS CRISIS_ ), the excitement of everyone on the screen, and knew exactly what was going on.

"But where is it?!" he cried, pressing his palms against the glass. If it was showing on a local station that meant it couldn't have been too far away. The video feed showed a park-y-looking area, and a waterfront. So that meant a coastline, presumably. A park on a coastline. So that just narrowed his options down to _too many_.

 _Desperate times_ , he grimaced and barged into the store. The cashier looked up as the door opened, staring uncomprehendingly as they failed to spot any customers. Jack ignored them, hurrying over to the TV he'd been watching and fiddling with the side buttons until he found one that unmuted it.

" _What a weird thing to say!_ " the reporter said. " _I'm so excited!_ "

But even with the sound on there was no hint as to where it was. The cashier frowned at the TV.

Jack started flicking rapidly through the channels, trying to find another news station. MAD24 News couldn't be the only one covering it. He found one quickly but accidentally skipped past it and had to back-track.

" _-found by Dr Octavius Brine, who is, as we speak, bringing them here to New York's Battery Park_ ," the reporter said, grinning but nowhere near as excitable as the man from MAD24 News had been. " _Th_ -"

The sound suddenly cut off again, and when Jack looked up it was to find the cashier pointing a remote at the TV. But it didn't matter now. He had what he needed.

 

* * *

 

Battery Park was in an uproar. While he'd managed to escape the hoards of octopi, George had failed to save the penguins or stop Dave before he could execute his plan. And from the looks of things so had Private. He just hoped it wasn't too late to revert the damage.

Mutated penguins were running around all over the place, chasing screaming humans and being chased by exterminators. It was chaos. And George had no idea what to do about it. The first step was probably to stop the trucks before there weren't any penguins left to save.

Surveying the scene, he spotted what looked like Private over by an abandoned hot dog stand. There were three other penguins with him – all mutated – but they seemed saner than the others. Knowing at this point he could use all the help he could get, George hurried over, dodging humans and exterminators as he went.

"George!" Private exclaimed as George finally reached them.

The other three looked between them in blatant confusion.

"You know this guy?" the one with the crab claw asked.

"We met on the sub."

"We can do introductions later," George cut in. "Right now we have bigger fish to fry."

"Right," Crab-claw agreed. "We need a plan."

"I've got one!" Private chimed in. Without waiting for a reply, he rushed off to the nearby bushes. His three companions were more confused than before, but George was willing to hear out any plan at this point.

Private was already removing a large canister filled with green liquid from a large machine by the time they caught up. Presumably the one that had caused this mess.

"You stole Dave's ray?" Crab-claw grinned.

"Well, I figured, if we could reverse the ray, we could turn everyone back to normal!"

It was… actually a surprisingly good idea. The kid might have been dopey looking, but apparently he was smarter than he looked.

"We'll need something to replace the Serum," George said.

"It's impossible! It would have to be something of almost immeasurable cuteness!" Snake-arms added.

Their faces fell. "Immeasurable cuteness? Where the heck are we supposed to get that?!" Crab-claw asked. He looked utterly defeated.

But Private had already thought of a solution to this, too: himself. And regardless of his friends' protests, he would not be dissuaded. Sometimes, George knew, sacrifices had to be made. Even at the cost of butt-hands.

Of course, nothing was ever allowed to be easy. Faced with an army of octopi, and a button press away from victory, all that stood in their way was a flat battery. With the most manic looking one – Rico – sent off to get new ones, it was up to the rest of them to defend the ray until he got back. But, again, nothing was ever allowed to be easy.

" _George!_ "

George recognised that voice. Smacking the octopus that had been attacking him away, he spun around. Jack was hovering above, looking like he didn't quite believe what he was seeing, but there was nothing but relief on his face when his eyes landed on George.

" _I've been looking everywhere for you!_ " He swooped down, landing in front of him and hugging him tightly.

"What are you doing here?!" George demanded, allowing himself to be hugged. He always allowed it.

"College debt," Jack grinned at him.

George resisted the urge to groan. Jack had taken it upon himself to try and mimic them – had been doing it for years. Unfortunately, he was terrible at it. It was normally endearing. Right now it only added to his stress.

"We've got bigger problems to worry about," George told him, trying to impress on him the seriousness of the situation. The octopi were heading straight for them.

"Irritable bowel," Jack said. He glanced at the chaos unfolding around them. " _I'm glad you're okay, buddy. Mind filling me in on what's going on?_ "

An octopus was creeping up behind him. George shoved him out of the way and knocked it back.

" _…Okay. The octopi are the bad guys. Got it._ "

Without warning, he took to the air again. At least he'd be safe up there. Not that the octopi were really targeting humans. But did Jack really count as a human? George wasn't sure (the colony had been questioning it for years), but he didn't want to take the risk. Satisfied that he wouldn't have to worry about Jack, George threw himself back into the fight. Crab-claw and Snake-arms – Skipper and Kowalski, he'd managed to pick up from conversation – had been pressed up against the ray and looked like they could use all the help they could get.

A blast of ice struck out from above, cutting George off before he could reach them. The octopi closest to the ray had all been frozen solid.

"What the heck was that?!" Skipper gaped.

Kowalski looked up, easily spotting Jack above them, and whacked his friend to get his attention. Jack narrowed his eyes and his handwork, gave a sharp nod of satisfaction, and moved on to the next wave.

" _Who_ the heck was that?!" Skipper amended.

More octopi were quickly replacing the ones Jack had taken care of.

"Questions later!" George called back, diving out of the way to avoid an extermination truck that got a little too close for comfort.

" _Stay away from my General Penguin!_ " Jack snapped, and with a wave of his staff the vacuum was filled with ice, no longer functional. The human controlling it exclaimed angrily at his machine's sudden failure to function, as if he hadn't even noticed Jack's intervention. Interesting.

An ice cream truck barrelled out of seemingly nowhere, taking out a swarm of octopi on its way to Dave's ship. The occupants jumped out in time to avoid getting caught up in the explosion. The North Wind, George figured. About time they showed up.

It was all rather impressive until they promptly got sucked up by one of the exterminator's trucks. George shook his head and turned away. Well, that explained why the agency had felt an extra pair of wings was in order. Hopeless.

George looked back at the ray. Skipper was standing on top of the glass dome, remote in hand. Dave the octopus was quickly gaining on him. Kowalski was nowhere in sight. George ran towards them as fast as his legs would carry him, dodging the octopi's attempts at grabbing at him, and using them as springboards whenever the opportunity arose.

Ahead, he could see Rico flapping frantically towards the ray. Skipper turned towards him as he coughed up a pair of batteries. But George could already tell that even if Skipper managed to catch them, it would be too late. Dave was already upon him.

The remote went flying out of Skipper's grasp, beyond his and Rico's reach. Both were quickly snagged by Dave and tossed towards the extermination trucks. But then Jack was there, snatching them both up before they could be captured.

Skipper and Rico looked up at him in shock.

"I don't know who this weird flying guy is but I'm sure glad he's on our side," Skipper said.

Jack glanced down at him with a small smile. "Insurance claim," he said.

Skipper and Rico stared at him. A second later they were gently deposited on the ground and Jack zoomed off towards Dave, who was starting to break through the ray's glass.

" _Anyone who wants to hurt these penguins is going to have to go through me!_ " he shouted. Dave looked up in shock as Jack approached, but had no chance to react before he was suddenly whacked away from Private. Frost seeped around him, freezing him to the snow globe-covered end of the ray just as George reached the fallen remote. Without a second's hesitation, he pressed the button.

Pink light exploded outwards. The extermination trucks rattled, pink seeping from the seams in the metal, until they finally burst open. Penguins jumped out by the dozen, all back to normal. Mission success.

Jack was suddenly right next to him. " _Man, I have no idea what the heck just happened but, uh, good work team?_ "

George smiled up at him. "Thanks for the help."

"Cathedral," Jack said.

George sighed. Maybe one day Jack would figure out penguin. Today was not that day, but he had hope.

The other penguins and the North Wind were gathering around the ray. George started pushing his way closer – made easier by the fact that he towered above the other penguins. Having Jack with him also didn't hurt. At the centre of the mob stood Private's three friends, all of whom now looked decidedly less monstrous. In front of them was a large egg-like thing. From the sad murmurs coming from the three, George felt it safe to presume that Private was inside that chrysalis. Poor kid.

Jack crouched down beside them, warily eyeing the members of the North Wind but otherwise unfazed. He remained silent, as if he too sensed the heavy atmosphere.

There was a crack, quiet but like a gunshot in the silence. The chrysalis exploded, showering everyone close to it in goop. And then there was Private – bright pink and with an impressive pair of antlers – but alive.

" _Well, that's… something_ ," Jack said, tone heavy with disbelief.

George couldn't help but agree.

"Alright, I've got some questions," Skipper said, turning to George and Jack after all was said and done.

George nodded. It was understandable. "I'll do my best to answer them."

Skipper jabbed a wing at Jack. "Who the heck is this guy?"

George glanced up at Jack, who seemed obliviously amused. "His name is Jack," he began. "He has been a member of my colony for decades; long before I was born. He comes and goes as he pleases. The latter often for long periods of time, but he always comes back eventually."

"And the flying and ice thing?" Kowalski asked.

George shrugged. "We don't really know. We've gotten better at understanding him, but he doesn't really know how to speak penguin so we've never been able to get answers to our questions. But he's not like the other humans. Sometimes we doubt he even is one."

"Cash register," Jack added, grinning at them.

George sighed. "He tries."

Jack turned away towards the entrance of the park, where George quickly spotted the humans returning with some of their earlier enthusiasm, though it was significantly less than it had been. It probably wouldn't be long before the penguins were all rounded up and returned to the zoos they'd come from.

"We should probably get going before we get swept up in the crowd," he noted at the same time Jack said, " _Let's go home, George._ "

"Alright, penguins," the leader of the North Wind (George hadn't caught his name) piped up. "We'll give you a lift."

"Jetpacks!" the penguins cheered.

The wolf rolled his eyes but didn't comment.

George blinked as Jack's arms suddenly wrapped around him. The boy in question grunted with the effort of trying to lift him, but was ultimately forced to give up.

" _Man, you really need to lay off the fish,_ " Jack told him fondly. " _Looks like we're taking the fun route._ "

George shook his head in exasperation. Honestly, if Jack hadn't been there he could have just slipped off and had the agency provide transport. He only didn't because there would be no way to explain it to Jack. And, well, he'd be lying if he said the fun route wasn't aptly named.

"This is where we part, then," he said to the penguin quartet, who were starting to follow after the North Wind.

"Will we see you again?" Private asked sadly.

"Who knows?"

The humans were starting to take photos, and the authorities were closing in. It was time to go. Jack nudged him with the end of his staff and gestured towards the water.

" _Come on, buddy; the others are waiting and if we stay any longer I'm going to have to bust you out of a zoo. Bye, cute tiny penguins!_ " He waved, the penguins waved back, and then he took off for the ocean. George was close behind.

George didn't hesitate to throw himself over the edge. A platform of ice formed beneath him before he could hit the water, extending as Jack paved the way home. It would be a long trip, and they'd probably make a fair few stops, but he didn't mind. Maybe they could do some sight-seeing along the way.


	125. Samhain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This could... definitely be better. But I'm super tired, it's getting late, and it's already long enough as it is. So!
> 
> Requested by Fenrir Wylde Razgriz.
> 
> Happy Halloween everyone!
> 
> (There are still request slots available, btw)

"Alright, everyone! Shut up and gather 'round!"

Conversation across the pumpkin patch immediately fell away as the guests all turned their attention towards the source of the voice. Jack placed his goblet of juice (at least he hoped it was juice) on the nearest table and joined the masses as they shuffled closer to where Jack-O-Lantern was standing on a haphazard pile of pumpkins.

"I've decided that this year we're going to do something a little different," Jack-O announced. His grin was so wide it looked like his skull was preparing to jump right out of his skin. "We're going to play a game! One we haven't played since… well, I'm sure you all remember _that_."

Jack had no idea what 'that' was, but judging from the way some of the spirits around him cringed, he probably didn't want to know.

"But we'll all be very extra careful not to repeat that, won't we?" Jack-O nodded solemnly. A second later, the grin was back in full-force. "So!" he clapped. "For the benefit of those who don't remember or weren't here, we are going to have a test of courage; but I promise it's nothing like those little expeditions the kiddies go on. In fact, there are no kids at all, because if I dragged hapless mortals into this _someone_ –" he sent Jack a mock-glare "–will throw a hissy fit."

Jack glared right back. If Jack-O wanted to call protecting children and doing his job a 'hissy fit' then fine, he was throwing a hissy fit.

"As I'm sure you're all aware – and if you're not then what are you even doing here? – at midnight tonight the boundary between this world and the Otherworld will be at its thinnest, which means the spirits of the dead, the aos sí, and whatever else lives over there will be paying us a little visit. While they're visiting family, seeking revenge on enemies, and just generally having a good time, _we_ have the perfect opportunity to sneak into the Otherworld."

Jack didn't think it was possible, but Jack-O's grin only grew wider.

"Each of you will be given a turnip lantern. Your test is to light it with Other-fire and bring it back here before sunrise. If your flame goes out before you return, you lose. If you get caught or don't make it back… well, it was nice knowing you. Game starts at midnight. And remember, I will know if your fire is Other-fire or not. If you get caught cheating, you'll regret it!"

Jack-O jumped down from his pumpkin pile as hushed conversation broke out amongst the crowd. Jack tried not to let his unease show on his face. He didn't know much about the Otherworld, but he was fairly certain you weren't supposed to sneak in. Getting caught by the aos sí was the least of his worries.

"So, Jacky, have you decided which Otherworld you're going to pick?"

Jack startled as an arm was suddenly flung across his shoulders. He turned, easily spotting Jack-O looming over him, grin almost feral.

"Annwn? Avalon? Tech Duinn? Or maybe you have something a little different in mind. One of the Lokas maybe? Or how about She'ol? Or Yomi? I hear Yomi's nice."

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Jack asked, pulling away.

Jack-O's smile fell a fraction. "Are you going to chicken out before the game has even begun? Tut tut, Jack. I thought you were braver than that."

"There's a difference between being brave and being stupid."

"So true, so true," Jack-O agreed, pressing an unlit turnip lantern into Jack's hands. "Best keep your wits about you if you don't want to get caught. It'd be a shame if you didn't make it back." And then he was gone, off to harass the other guests.

Jack sighed and stared down at his turnip's sinisterly happy face. Idly, he wondered if there was a penalty for failing to get Other-fire, and if so if it was any worse than the risks of sneaking into the Otherworld. And on that note, how was he even supposed to get into one?

"Hey," he said, gaze drifting to the mangkukulam standing to his right. Normally, he would never have even considered talking to a being like her, but the Halloween truce was in effect, so he figured he was reasonably safe. "You wouldn't happen to know where the entrances to the Otherworlds are, would you?"

She turned her weathered face towards him. Her voice, when she spoke, was as old and husky as she looked, and he didn't understand a word of it.

"Um…"

She scowled at him. "Water," she said impatiently, switching to heavily accented English. "Boat coffins." She looked him over critically. "You might want to find another way."

"…Thanks," Jack forced a smile. A water entry point probably wasn't the best idea. Things like that often involved rivers, which meant leaving would involve fighting the current. Not to mention the water would likely put the fire out. But there had to be other entrances.

Hades was an option, he supposed, and he could always ask Ceres about it. But wasn't there a big three-headed dog guarding the place? Jack was fairly certain he'd heard that getting out was almost impossible. He needed something else.

What had Jack-O suggested? Avalon, he thought. Or Yomi. Avalon would probably be the easiest. It was an island, he was pretty sure. He could just fly in, find some fire, and fly back out. And England was a lot closer than Japan.

So when midnight came and Samhain began, Jack-O gave the signal and the guests dispersed in all directions, each, presumably, heading for their own preferred Otherworld. Jack didn't waste any time, immediately flying off to the south towards England. The sooner he got this over with, the sooner he could stop worrying about it.

 

* * *

 

It took longer than expected to find Glastonbury Tor, the place believed to be the site of Avalon. Mostly because even when he'd arrived he wasn't entirely sure he had the right place. There hadn't been a lake there for longer than Jack had been alive. And yet there was one there now; water dead-still and so dark he could see himself reflected in it. A heavy fog had settled on top of it, completely obscuring the island and its tower.

 _Ghost lake?_ Jack wondered. Was there only water here now because it was Samhain? Or was he truly in the wrong place? But, no, he thought, looking back at the lights of the nearby town. That was definitely Glastonbury. So this had to be the Tor. And a ghost lake. Who'd have thought?

 _Right_ , he told himself. _Just fly in, find something to light the lantern with, and then fly back out. Easy._ He patted his hoodie pocket, confirming the lantern was still there, and called on the wind. He shot off towards the centre of the lake, but his feet had barely left the ground before something snagged on his hood and he was jerked to a stop and flung to the ground, landing heavily on his back and left gasping.

What the hell was that?

Still regaining his breath, Jack's gaze darted to the figure looming over him. Pitch Black stared down at him, arms crossed and expression carefully neutral.

"What was that for?!" Jack snapped, surging back to his feet.

"You're welcome," Pitch replied, voice heavy with sarcasm.

"Oh, yes, where are my manners? _Thank_ you!"

Pitch sneered at him, wholly unimpressed. "I had hoped you would still have a few functioning brain cells, but it seems your time with the Guardians has killed them all. Assuming you had any to begin with."

"What are you talking about?" Jack frowned.

"You're dead."

It was so blunt and so completely unexpected that for a long moment Jack just stared at him, face blank and jaw slack. He blinked, slowly processing the words. He was sure he'd heard right, but he still didn't understand. "…What?"

Pitch rolled his eyes. "You're dead," he repeated impatiently.

"Um." It _was_ technically true. "What's your point?"

Pitch raised a brow and looked pointedly out towards the centre of the lake. "Where were you heading?"

"Avalon?" Surely that much was obvious. Pitch had been _at the party_. Hell, he was even carrying his own lantern. Jack would have (sarcastically) pointed out as much if not for the fact that he still had no idea what Pitch was getting at.

"Which is…?"

"One of the gates to the Otherworld?"

"And what are in the Otherworlds?" he asked, as though Jack were a particularly dense child.

"Ghosts?" Spirits was probably a more accurate term.

"Which are…?"

"Dead people?" Then, finally losing his patience, "Is there a point to this?"

"Yes," Pitch agreed. "Dead people. Like you. I daresay you'll fit right in."

Jack stared at him, still lost. Why did that matter? If anything, wouldn't it help?

"So well, in fact, that you probably won't be able to leave."

Oh.

That was… probably something he should have considered. He wasn't like Jack-O, who could do what he liked because no Otherworld would accept him permanently. If he went in, would he be able to get back out again?

And then another thing clicked.

"Aw, were you _worried_ about me?" he teased.

Pitch's lip curled. "It was a spur of the moment decision. I already regret it."

That wasn't a no, though. But Jack decided he'd let it go this time and consider them even. He pulled his turnip out of his pocket and considered it. Pitch may have saved him from being stuck forever in an afterlife, but it left him with a new problem. "If I can't get into an Otherworld, how am I supposed to get Other-fire?"

Pitch smirked. "'If you get caught cheating, you'll regret it'," he quoted.

"Yes, I did hear that; I was th- Oh," Jack cut himself off as the hidden implication hit him. "If you get _caught_." Well, this was something he could work with. Now he just had to figure out how to do it. He thought over everything Jack-O had said carefully, and was completely unsurprised to find that they'd been given all the clues they needed.

Jack's expression shifted to match Pitch's. "So, any idea where we can find the aos sí?"

 

* * *

 

Jack loitered impatiently on the sidewalk, trying in vain to spot Pitch through the window. Pitch had shadow travelled them into Glastonbury outside a party store, and had then disappeared inside without any explanation whatsoever. Jack had no idea what he was doing in there, but he had a feeling it probably wasn't good. But given the time of night, the store was closed and he had no way of chasing after him without breaking something. He was forced to wait.

"Here," Pitch said, emerging from the shadows and tossing something at Jack.

Jack fumbled catching it but somehow managed not to drop it. It was a mask, he realised – the kind of plastic ones they often advertised to kids for parties – designed to look like a skull. "Did you steal this?" he asked, looking up at Pitch.

Pitch watched him impatiently, only his eyes visible from behind the devil mask he was wearing.

"You look ridiculous," Jack told him.

Pitch glared at him. "And on you it'll be an improvement. Now hurry up."

"Why do we even need these?" he asked, even as he slipped it on.

"Because the aos sí are not generally known for their hospitality. It will make things much easier for us if they think we're one of them." With barely a gesture, a Nightmare emerged from the darkness. Pitch easily swung himself up onto its back and a moment later they took off down the street. Jack raced after them on a strong gust of wind.

"So where to now?" he asked.

"Now we find one of the aos sí with the ability to light the lanterns."

"And you know where to find them?"

Pitch cast him a sideways glance. "You really are completely clueless."

"I guess I must have missed out when they were holding the Aos Sí 101 class," he snapped back.

Pitch suddenly made a sharp left turn. Jack flew straight past it and was forced to double back. He suspected that might have been the intention.

"In the old days, the aos sí were given offerings and visited their homes and families that were still alive," Pitch began once Jack had caught up. "The human practices have changed since then, but the aos sí more or less behave the same."

"So, what, we just stake out residential areas and hope for the best?" Jack guessed. It sounded like a lot of waiting.

"Only if you intend to wait around for hours. Look for bonfires, preferably ones with lots of people."

Well, that made things a little easier. Knowing it would be easier to spot a bonfire from above, he switched his trajectory and shot off skywards until he was hovering well above the town. Below, Pitch had brought his Nightmare to a halt and was watching him.

The darkness should have made it easy to spot a bonfire nearby, but he could see no glowing lights on the horizon that were any brighter than regular street lights. Maybe heading back to Ireland would be a better option. The aos sí were more common around there, right? He was about to head back down and suggest as much to Pitch but paused when the wind carried the strong smell of smoke over to him.

"Where?" Jack frowned, swivelling around to face the direction the wind had come from. He squinted, trying to make out the tell-tale sign of embers or smoke amidst the town's lights. His wind tugged at him. "Show me."

With no further urging, the wind carried him over houses and stores, cars and the few lingering pedestrians, and ultimately just outside of town. It was then that he spotted it – a small, dying fire in a large open space. Partially illuminated by its light were a mixture of dark silhouettes. People? Or aos sí?

"Thanks, wind," Jack muttered. He mentally marked the location and turned, ready to head back and tell Pitch what he'd found, only to spot a Nightmare racing towards him. Wordlessly, Jack pointed down to the field.

Pitch reined the Nightmare in, but not before Jack was forced to dart out of the way to avoid being trampled. This too, he suspected, had been deliberate. Probably for having left him behind like that.

"Good enough," Pitch remarked and then he was charging towards the ground.

Jack chased after him with a grumbled, "You're welcome."

They came in to land well back from the bonfire's fading light, and without any verbal direction, the Nightmare disappeared into the darkness. Up close, the bonfire was bigger than Jack had assumed, though not by much. There were a lot of charred branches and ash around the edges, hinting that it had been much larger at one stage.

The figures gathered around it didn't seem to mind, though. Even from this distance, it was nearly impossible to determine who was human and who wasn't. They were of varying heights, and most were humanoid in appearance, but many were wearing masks and costumes. In fact, Jack wouldn't have been surprised if some of the costumes had come from the same party store Pitch had pilfered earlier. But there were others, figures that were lankier than humans or different shapes entirely, that were clear sign that even if most were human, there were still aos sí and other creatures among them.

"Do you think that's human fire or Other-fire?" Jack whispered. If it was the latter, it would certainly make things easy for them. But that was probably too much to hope for.

Pitch studied the crowd silently. "At least half are human," he said at length. "So I would presume human fire."

Damn.

"Oh? Newcomers?"

Jack and Pitch turned to the face the source of the voice. At first glance, she looked like a normal human woman(1), dressed as one of the superheroines from a recent movie, but the fact that she could see them was evidence enough that she was no such thing.

"And who might you be? I haven't seen you around before," she continued, her smile a little too wide to be welcoming.

"Travellers," Pitch said before Jack had a chance to get a word in edgewise.

"Indeed? And what brings you to these parts?"

Pitch pointedly held up his turnip. "We're only here to light our lantern." It didn't escape Jack's notice that he'd said lantern, singular. But he held his tongue. Clearly there was more going on here than he was aware of.

The woman's grin stretched wider, and the glint in her eyes had taken on a predatory edge that made Jack uneasy. "I could light it for you," she offered, as if completely oblivious to the bonfire continuing to burn behind her.

Pitch did not outwardly react. "And the price?"

Ah, so that was it. They would have to give something for the fire. Better to only pay once, and then just light the remaining lantern with the flame they were given. Smart.

The woman tilted her head to the side, clearly thinking it over. "I think…" she began, stretching out the word. Her gaze settled on Jack and her smile grew. "Alright. I will light your lantern and in exchange you give me the boy."

"What?!" Jack yelped. He turned his shocked gaze on Pitch. To his horror, Pitch was actually considering it. "Pitch!"

"Shut up, I'm thinking," Pitch said.

There was a painfully long moment of silence. Jack seriously started to consider just flying off before Pitch decided to pawn him off for _fire_.

"No," Pitch finally decided, and Jack practically slumped in relief. "Better not. I'll never hear the end of it."

The woman's smile slipped away into something dangerously neutral. "Shame," she said. "Let me know if you change your mind." And then she turned her back on them and walked off.

Jack glared at Pitch.

"What?" Pitch snapped back at him.

"You were going to sell me for fire!"

"I didn't, though."

"You were _thinking_ about it!"

Pitch didn't deny it. Jack wanted to hit him. "Perhaps I should have said yes," he said casually, and stalked off in the opposite direction the woman had gone.

Jack scowled after him but made no move to follow. Fine, if that was how he was going to be, Jack would just find Other-fire by himself.

Steering well clear of the bonfire, Jack trudged through the crowd, trying to figure out who was human and who wasn't.

"Um, excuse me," he said, reaching out to tap a man wearing a cloak on the shoulder, "are you able to–" His finger slid straight through the man's shoulder. He jumped backwards with a surprised gasp. "Human. That one's human."

"The only downside of Samhain," a voice behind him said gruffly. "Almost impossible to tell who's what when everyone's in disguise."

Jack spun around. The owner of the voice was vaguely human-esque, with the vague appearance of an old man, but his taloned fingers, large fiery eyes, and far-too-long teeth gave him away as being Other. There was a deep crimson cap on his head, and in his left hand he held a pikestaff.

"What were you going to ask, boy?" the old man(2) asked curiously.

Jack debated the risk in telling him. One the one hand, the aos sí were probably not very trustworthy. On the other, he'd never get any Other-fire by sunrise if he kept it to himself. "I'm looking for someone who can light a lantern with Other-fire," he eventually confessed.

The old man grinned in a way scarily similar to the woman from before. "I can do that for you, boy."

Jack narrowed his eyes. "And what would you want in exchange?"

The old man laughed. "You're a clever one, boy! I like that. Complete a task for me and I will light your lantern."

"What's the task?"

The old man leaned closer, and Jack resisted the urge to step back. "There have been rumours," he whispered, "of some upstarts trying to take advantage of the thinning of the border between the realms. They seek to open a permanent corridor between them. A group of spirits have taken it upon themselves to prevent this. I want you to give this to them; it will help them succeed." He reached into his coat and pulled out what looked like an ordinary tree branch, except it was completely silver, as if it had been spray painted.

Jack accepted the branch awkwardly. How was something like this supposed to stop anyone from doing anything? Were they just going to hit the offending spirits with it? "Where will I find them?"

"The sídhe of Brú na Bôinne. It is in a bend of the River Boyne in County Meath of Ireland. Follow the river. You will know it when you see it. Come back before sunrise and I will give you your flame!"

Well, Jack supposed, even if there had been nothing in it for him he probably wouldn't have been able to leave this alone; not with something as important as the balance of the realms on the line. At the clear dismissal, he nodded his thanks and took to the air. Hopefully it wouldn't take long.

 

* * *

 

Just as the old man had said, Jack knew exactly when he'd arrived; the area was dotted with grassy mounds – the sídhe. A reasonably large group of spirits had assembled by one of the mounds, and even from the air it was clear to Jack that many of them were not from these parts. Had they heard what was happening and decided to help? A quick scan of the area showed that there were no others nearby.

It didn't take the spirits long to notice him. And before Jack's feet had even touched the ground they were gathering around him. A nearly incorporeal one(3) at the front of the group stepped towards him.

"The silver branch," it moaned. "You have brought it for us."

"I was asked to give it to the spirits defending the borders," Jack replied.

"We are defending the borders," a female spirit assured him. Somehow, impossibly, she did not appear to have a face(4). "You have been most kind to do us this service."

No one had asked him to hand it over yet. "If you're the defence, where are the ones planning to force open a path?" Because he thought he should have seen them by now. But there was no one else there.

A spectral humanoid stepped forward. All that could be seen of its face in the darkness were a pair of glowing eyes, veiled by long hair(5). "We have no way of knowing which entry point they intend to target," it said silkily. "Instead of trying to track them down, we have decided the best option is to simply force the borders closed now. That way, the threat will be neutralised without the need for a confrontation."

Jack frowned. "Won't that force most of you to return to the Otherworld early?"

The spirit nodded sadly. "Yes, the vast majority of us reside within the Otherworld, stuck there for much of the human year. But we have agreed that cutting our trip here short is a small price to pay for the stability of the realms."

Jack thought of all the spirits from Jack-O's party who were undoubtedly creeping around the Otherworlds as they spoke. If the borders thickened now, how many of them would be trapped there? "Is there no other way to stop them? The borders will strengthen again at sunrise."

"Your concern is touching," the spirit said. "What do you think, Skadegamutc?" It turned to what looked to Jack like nothing more than a ball of light. "Is there another option? Are there protections we could cast to prevent the insurgents from damaging the border without needing to close it completely?"

For a long moment, there was only silence. Then, in a rasping whisper, "It is doable."

The glowing-eyed spirit turned back to Jack. "Perhaps you would care to assist us, dear boy. Your help would be much appreciated."

As much as he just wanted to give them the branch and be done with it, Jack knew that something as serious as this couldn't be left alone. With an internal sigh, he asked, "What do you want me to do?"

"We will venture just inside this entrance," it gestured to an opening in the closest sídhe, "and Skadegamutc will use magic to strengthen the border. The branch's magic alone is not enough to do this, nor is Skadegamutc's, but if we pool our magic together, I am certain it will be enough."

That sounded reasonable enough, Jack supposed. Except for one thing. "I don't think it's safe for me to enter the Otherworld."

"Do not fear, young one. The silver branch acts as something of a free-pass into the Otherworld. So long as you hold it, you will not be trapped."

He was still uneasy, but they were all looking at him like he was their saviour. How could he turn them down and disappoint them now? Besides, maybe there was a chance he could get some Other-fire while he was there, and not have to rely on the old man after all. "If you're sure…"

"Excellent!" the spirit replied joyously. "Now then, everyone please follow me." Then, without waiting for a response, it turned and slipped through the sídhe's entrance.

The spirits followed after it. Jack was jostled until he was somewhere in the middle. As he passed through the entrance and into the Otherworld, he seriously hoped he wasn't making a huge mistake.

"This is the spot," the glowing-eyed spirit announced. In the heavy silence, its voice seemed to echo forever.

Jack gazed around, but there wasn't much to see. Darkness stretched in all directions, and they stood in ankle-deep water that had no visible beginning or end. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but this emptiness wasn't it.

A tap to his shoulder made him turn, and he suddenly found himself face-to-face with a beautiful Indian woman(6).

"Take the branch up to the Skadegamutc, child," she told him.

Jack nodded, leaving his place in the line and following it to the front, where the glowing-eyed spirit and Skadegamutc were waiting.

"Ah, there you are," the glowing-eyed spirit said once it caught sight of him. "Come, and we shall begin."

"Are all the Otherworlds like this?" Jack asked, glancing around as the spirit gestured to the rest to form a circle.

"Dear boy, this is merely the boundary," the spirit explained. It placed a hand to Jack's back and gently nudged him to the centre of the circle where the Skadegamutc was waiting. "It is a halfway point, I suppose. Not quite within the Otherworld proper, but not on Earth either. It is here that we can most strongly connect with the border."

"So what do I do?"

"Just stand here, don't let go of the branch, and let Skadegamutc direct you," the spirit said, and then stepped back to join the circle.

Jack watched it go uneasily before letting his attention rest on the orb of light.

"Try to relax," it rasped. "Close your eyes, and let your energy flow into the branch."

He did as he was told. The Skadegamutc began to chant quietly, and Jack could feel its energy seeping into the water and flowing up through him into the branch. As it progressed, power from the spirits forming the circle around them joined it, growing in strength until Jack began to doubt whether so much power could be contained within him, let alone the branch still in his grasp. He felt like he was bursting at the seams, overflowing and threatening to explode. He sucked in a sharp breath. The chanting rose in volume.

Jack felt his knees buckle and he landed heavily, the water soaking into his pants. He couldn't breathe.

Somewhere, distantly, he heard a voice call, "Let go of the branch!"

"Stop him!" a different voice shouted. "Don't let him disrupt the spell!"

There was splashing from all directions, and vacantly Jack noticed some of the streams of power falter and die. But what remained was still too much. He was suffocating in it, unable to even move. He could hear shouting, but it was like someone had plugged his ears with cotton.

More splashing, more shouting, more streams of power from the circle dissipating. Jack forced his eyes open. He could see the glowing pathways formed by the spirits still in the circle, could see the Skadegamutc before him. But many of the spirits that had been there were missing now, leaving large gaps in the circle. He spotted them quickly enough. Beyond the circle's bounds they were fighting against something. With the bright light surrounding him he couldn't quite make out what it was, but he thought it might have been…

…sand?

"Jack!" a familiar voice called, still sounding like it was a million miles away. "Let go of the branch!"

Let go of the branch? But didn't he need to hold onto it so he could get out again? Didn't he need to help protect the borders?

 _He's right_ , a voice, feminine and nostalgic, whispered in his ear, louder than anything else. _You need to let go, Jack._

"But…" he breathed.

_Trust me._

He let go. The water that had hitherto been shallow swallowed him whole.

 

* * *

 

Jack awoke to a pleasant warmth. The ground beneath him was solid and dry, but not uncomfortable, and his head felt as though it were being cradled in someone's lap. There were fingers gently stroking his hair. Someone was humming. Confused but surprisingly at ease, he opened his eyes.

A woman with kind eyes was looking down at him. A very familiar woman. She stopped humming when she noticed him watching her, but her fingers continued to card through his hair.

"You always were one to get yourself into trouble," she said, fondly exasperated.

A lump formed in his throat and his eyes stung with the threat of tears. "Mother?"

"Hello, Jack."

Jack pushed himself up until he was sitting, and immediately missed her warmth. As if sensing it, she opened her arms to him and he gratefully sank into her embrace. When was the last time he'd been able to hug her? He couldn't even remember.

"How is this possible?" he asked, finally pulling away just enough to look at her. His mother was dead. She'd been dead for centuries. Surely there should be no way for her to be here with him now. But it was too vivid, too real, to be a dream.

"You already know the answer to that," she said. "Think."

Jack turned his attention to their surroundings. It looked vaguely like an island, he decided. But not an island he'd ever seen before. There was a beach – where he and his mother were sitting – which led onto grass, and then in the distance he could see the vague outline of some kind of city or town. But even from this distance he knew that he'd never seen anything like it.

He tried to think back to what he'd been doing before he'd woken up here. His memory was fuzzy, but he thought there might have been water. And pain.

"This is…" he began, trying to connect his scrambled thoughts. He remembered a mask, which he now noted was gone, and some kind of tree branch. He'd been asked to do something with it. Give it to someone. There'd been spirits. He'd thought they were good but… "This is the Otherworld?"

"One of them," his mother confirmed.

"Not ours, but when we felt your presence we thought it was worth breaking a few rules."

Jack spun around at the new voice. He'd thought it had just been him and his mother, but when he turned it was to find that there were two other people sitting in the sand behind him. One was another woman, the other a man. They all seemed around the same age, and the two new people were as familiar to him as his mother was, though he found himself struggling to put names to their faces. The woman started fiddling with her sleeve anxiously as soon as their eyes met, as if she was restraining herself.

His mother placed her hand on his shoulder. Jack leaned into her touch. God he'd missed her. "Do you remember them?" she asked gently.

He had a strong suspicion as to their identities, and he hated the lingering uncertainty and the guilt that came with it. He was going to have to try and wean some more memories from his tooth box, he decided.

Jack turned his attention to the man. If the woman pressed against his side was his mother, then this must be… "Father?"

He had no memories of his father; his tooth box hadn't shown him that – had barely shown him his mother, even. But the man, his father, beamed at him and swept him up into a tight hug, and Jack felt the tears that had been building up overflow.

"What about me?" the remaining woman huffed.

Jack shifted until he was able to see her properly. She had her hands on her hips like she was angry, but the expression in her eyes ruined the effect. He had trouble associating this woman with who he now knew her to be, but it was her.

With his mother on one side and his father on the other, he didn't have much room to move, but Jack managed to free one arm and held it out to her. "Flee," he grinned.

Flee practically flung herself at him, crying tears of her own. They were all crying.

Flee was the first to pull away, but only so she could punch Jack in the arm.

"Ow! What was that for?" Jack grouched.

"That was for leaving me!" she said. She punched him again.

"Ow!"

"And _that_ is for never coming to visit us! All these years and you never once came by Burgess on Samhain!"

"Go easy on him," their mother chastised. "He probably didn't know."

"I didn't," Jack confessed. The thought that he could have been spending time with them every Halloween and he'd been missing out because he'd never put two-and-two together was equal parts frustrating and depressing. Why had he never considered it? He _knew_ Samhain was when spirits returned to the living world. "I promise I'll come every year from now on."

"You'd better!" Flee glared at him. "There are a lot of people for you to meet."

Family members he'd never even been aware of. It was too good to be true. He made a mental note to bring Jamie and Sophie with him. And maybe even Mrs Bennett, if she was willing. They'd probably love to meet their ancestors. And he could bring the Guardians one day, too.

"I've got people I want you to meet, too," he said.

"And we want to hear about what you've been up to," his father chimed in.

"A story that will have to wait for another time, I think," his mother said reluctantly.

"But I just got here!" Jack protested.

"You should leave soon if you don't want to get stuck. And we need to return to our own Otherworld, too," she started fiddling with his hair again. "Besides, we can spend a whole night together next Samhain. A year isn't long."

Getting stuck didn't seem quite so bad if it meant he'd get to stay with them, Jack mused. If it had been even just ten years ago he probably would have decided to. But things were different now. He had friends and responsibilities, and as much as he loved and missed his real family, he knew his place was still on Earth. And there were still those spirits and the border between the realms to worry about.

Reluctantly, he pulled away and got to his feet. His family copied him.

"How do I get back?" he asked. In truth, he wasn't even sure how he'd gotten there to begin with. He recognised the voice he'd heard now as belonging to his mother. Had she also been the one to bring him here from the intermediate zone?

All three of them pointed out towards the ocean. Jack sighed. Of course.

"Take care, sweetheart," his mother said, sweeping him up into another hug and pressing a kiss into his hair.

"I will."

As soon as she let go, he was once again pounced on by Flee. "You'd better show up next year or I swear I'll come haunt you for the rest of eternity," she threatened. Her grip was so tight Jack was starting to wonder if she wasn't secretly North in disguise.

"That doesn't sound so bad," he chuckled. He'd probably enjoy it, actually.

"It is bad. It's very bad. You'll hate it."

Jack very much doubted there was anything she could do that he'd hate. Just having her there – haunting him or not – would be too good to be true. "I promise I'll come," he said anyway. "Nothing could keep me away."

"I'll hold you to that," Flee released him, pointing a stern finger at him.

Their father stepped in, ruffling Jack's hair with one hand even as the other steered him towards the water. "Go on," he urged. "Before you get stuck here with us. We'll see you next year."

Jack forced his legs to carry him out into the water, looking back over his shoulder at the three of them waving him off. They were crying again, but so was he.

"This isn't goodbye!" he called back to them.

"See you soon!" they waved.

Jack turned back to face the ocean, a bittersweet smile on his face. _Yeah,_ he thought. _See you soon._

"Oh, hey," Jack said, stopping knee-deep in the water, "before I go…"

 

* * *

 

He emerged in that same midpoint between the realms that he'd started in, jumping up out of the water only for his feet to find solid ground again in the next instant. Whatever path had opened up to allow him into the Otherworld was gone now. But that was fine.

Around him was chaos. The spirits that had brought him there were still there, but their circle had more or less completely disappeared in favour of fighting back against, presumably, whatever had attacked them earlier. At least half were collapsed in the water, unmoving except for the black sand dancing around them. But Jack could still see Skadegamutc and a small group trying to complete the spell they'd intended to use Jack for. Some kind of clearly reluctant wispy thing had taken his place.

He realised now that he'd been tricked. These spirits had no intentions of defending the borders, and though he didn't understand what the branch had to do with anything or what the spell was supposed to do, he knew it was nothing good. Nothing that felt the way that spell had could possibly be good.

Right, he decided. Time to put a stop to this.

Tightening his grip on his staff, Jack surveyed the scene going on around him, calculating range and the number of spirits he was dealing with. He slammed his staff down into the water. Ice spread from the point of contact, freezing the shallow water into spikes in all directions. Every spirit the wave touched found itself frozen in place. The silence that fell over them all was deafening.

Jack glared at the lot of them. They stared at him in stunned silence. Mostly because the vast majority of them had had their mouths covered by ice. Jack let his gaze drift over towards the Skadegamutc and the spirit still holding the silver branch.

"I'll take that," he growled, clearing the distance between them and snatching the branch. Skadegamutc had been frozen into a pillar of ice, so Jack turned to the glowing-eyed spirit from before and waved the branch at it. "Explain."

The spirit squirmed against the ice binding it but it was a futile attempt. "As we said," it hissed at him, "we are trying to defend the border!"

Jack's eyes narrowed and the ice crept a little further up the spirit's body. "Try the truth this time."

It cursed at him.

"Don't waste your breath."

Jack looked to his right. Pitch was suddenly standing right beside him. He held his scythe tightly in one hand. Like Jack, he had lost his mask.

"An Ikiryph like this will only ever try to deceive," Pitch continued, not looking at him.

"I still want answers," Jack scowled.

Pitch rounded on him, expression fierce. "Anyone with a modicum of intelligence would be able to put two and two together," he snapped. "Even you shouldn't have been stupid enough to fall for such an obvious trap! Any magic that involves a living being in the middle of a circle is clearly going to include sacrifice!"

Jack had to admit, in hindsight it had been pretty stupid of him to trust a group of spirits he didn't even know, especially when he'd been as uneasy as he'd been. He didn't appreciate being yelled at, though; least of all by Pitch.

"Because I'm supposed to know every spirit and spell there is!"

"You got your information from a _Redcap!_ "

"I didn't know he was a Redcap!" Jack countered. "Besides, you're one to talk! If we're judging people by stereotypes then you're even less trustworthy!"

"Exactly!" Pitch spat. "If you had any brain cells left you would know that it's more than a stereotype and _leave me alone!_ "

"I can't do that!"

"Why not?!"

"Because you're family!"

The both froze, caught off guard by the proclamation. Jack stared up at Pitch with wide-eyes. Pitch looked equally shocked. He hadn't meant to admit that. It wasn't a lie and he wasn't going to take it back but god he had _not_ intended to say it out loud. He quickly averted his gaze, face flushing with embarrassment, and not least because they still had a very large audience. Maybe if he was lucky the Otherworld would open up beneath him and swallow him again.

The silence stretched on to the point that he couldn't take it anymore, and he finally dared to look up again. Pitch was gone.

 

* * *

 

"And here I was starting to think I'd seen the last of you!"

Jack forced a smile as he came in to land back in Jack-O's pumpkin patch. The man in question had his hands on his hips but there was a grin on his face.

"Sorry, I got a little caught up in something," Jack confessed.

Jack-O waved flippantly. "Did you get your Other-fire?"

Jack passed the silver branch over to the hand holding his staff and reached into his pocket, pulling out his turnip. It seemed impossible that the tiny flame would manage to survive all the water and then the flight back concealed within his hoodie (and also not set it on fire), but there it was, flickering merrily.

"Nice!" Jack-O plucked it from his hand and held it up for a closer look. "Yep, authentic Other-fire. Good work, Frost. If you don't mind me asking, where'd you get it?"

Jack grimaced. "Ah, it's a long story. Short version: my sister gave it to me."

Jack-O raised a brow in interest. "Oh? I think I want to hear the long version. Especially if it involves an explanation for why you've got a silver branch," he nodded to the branch in question.

Jack looked down at it. "You don't have any idea what to do with this, do you?"

"You could give it to me!"

Jack considered him. "I think I might just give it to North."

"Wow rude." Jack-O suddenly slung an arm over his shoulder and started guiding him back towards the party. Not all the guests had returned yet, but Jack still found himself trying to spot Pitch in the crowd. He didn't. "Well, we've still got at least an hour until sunrise. Why don't you tell me all about you're little adventure while we wait, hm?"

Jack sighed, resigning himself to the inevitable. There were some things he was going to be keeping to himself, though. At least for now. He needed time to process everything. Not to mention figure out what he was going to do.

"At first I decided on Avalon…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Just a random Fae  
> (2) Redcap  
> (3) Edimmu  
> (4) Faceless Woman  
> (5) Ikiryph  
> (6) Churel


	126. Christmas Revelations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this chapter feels rushed, it's because it absolutely is :T
> 
> Merry Christmas, everyone!

"Keep doing that and you'll end up on the Naughty List."

Jack and Jamie looked up from where they'd been attaching an antler-adorned Abby to Jamie's sled. Mrs Bennett stood at the backdoor, arms crossed and brow raised; the picture of disapproval.

"I will have you know I'm already on the Naughty List," Jack told her with mock offence. He'd worked damn hard to get there, too. North was becoming more lenient towards him, and it was starting to make it hard to maintain his record.

While Mrs Bennett blinked at him in obvious surprise, Jack returned his attention to Abby, throwing tinsel around her for 'reins'. Abby ignored him in favour of gnawing at an itch on her hind leg.

"I would have thought a Guardian would at least try to get on the Nice List," she finally replied.

Jack shrugged. "I'm all for good deeds and kindness, don't get me wrong. It's just more fun being on the Naughty List." He gave the reins a yank to test the knots he and Jamie had tied. It held firm, much to his excitement. "What do you think, Jamie? Ready to give her a run?"

Jamie grinned at him, taking a seat at the front of the sled while Jack climbed on behind him. "Ready!"

"Boys," Mrs Bennett warned. But it was too late. Jamie threw the tennis ball and Abby took off after it like her very existence depended on it.

As far as sledding went, it wasn't anywhere near as fast as North's sleigh, or even just a regular sled down a hill. Jack and Jamie's combined weight slowed Abby down considerably, but she didn't seem to mind tugging them along with her in her single-minded determination to get the ball.

Unfortunately, it didn't last long. Their cries of elation quickly morphed into panic when Abby caught the ball and staggered to a stop just short of the fence. The sled, not having any breaks, continued on until it crashed, taking Abby, Jamie, and Jack with it.

Jack was the first to emerge from the wreckage, quickly followed by Jamie, who was too busy laughing to be bothered by any scrapes or bruises he might have gotten. Abby started rolling around in the snow, trying to tear off the tinsel that had gotten wrapped around her leg.

"Are you done?" Mrs Bennett stared them down, somehow even less impressed than before.

"Yeah," Jamie said, righting the sled and freeing Abby from her festive shackles. "There's probably no salvaging this."

Jack was inclined to agree. Abby probably wouldn't let them try again, and, in hindsight, throwing a ball to get her to run probably wasn't the smartest idea they'd ever had. Maybe one day he'd convince North to let them have a ride in the actual sleigh.

"Good," Mrs Bennett said. "Now stop terrorising the dog and come inside. We're going to start putting up the decorations."

"Aren't you leaving it a little late?" Jack frowned. Christmas was only a week away now, but the Bennetts hadn't so much as put up their lights yet. Given Jamie and Sophie's usual Christmas hype, it was a little weird to say the least.

"We've been waiting for you," Jamie explained as they marched up the back steps and into the house.

"Me? Why?"

Mrs Bennett levelled him with a look that made him feel vaguely stupid. "Why do you think?" she asked.

"Uh… because you needed my expert decorating abilities?"

"No."

"…You want to use me to make putting up the lights easier?"

"No." A pause. "Well, _yes_ , that would be nice, but no."

"Then I have no idea."

Jamie nudged him in the side with his elbow. "Sophie and I told her."

Jack frowned at him. "Told her what?" From his tone, it didn't seem like they'd just told her to wait. But what else could have convinced her to put off a family tradition for – He stopped dead in the living room doorway. "Oh."

"Yes, oh." Mrs Bennett gave him a light push forwards towards where Sophie was cleaning up the pine needles that had fallen off their frankly ridiculously fat tree. "And just when were you planning on telling me we're related, _Uncle Jack?_ "

Jack couldn't hold back a grimace. 'Uncle Jack' sounded cute coming from the kids but somehow hearing it from Mrs Bennett, even sarcastically, felt… weird. "I was gonna… get around to it," he said at length. It was probably a lie. Truth be told, he'd completely forgotten that she hadn't already known.

Mrs Bennett didn't look convinced, but blessedly let it slide. "We waited for you because Christmas is about family, and this will be our first Christmas together _as_ a family."

The last time Jack had put up decorations with family – hell, the last time he'd put up decorations at all – had been a _long_ time ago with his direct family. Flee had always insisted he lift her up so she could put the tree-topper on. It was strange, he thought, that the Bennetts filled him with that same warmth.

"Thank you," he found his voice, discreetly wiping the budding tears from his eyes.

"That's what family's for."

"Come on, slowpokes!" Sophie called, ruining the moment. "I've waited _two whole weeks_ to decorate this thing and I refuse to wait a minute longer!"

They spent the rest of the afternoon decorating, and at one point Jack was coerced into putting the lights up (not that he minded). He was even forced into baking gingerbread – or, at least, decorating gingerbread. Unfortunately he wasn't much good with a piping bag. He left – winter needed his attention – in the late evening, and not without the three Bennetts extracting a promise from him to come back on Christmas Eve.

 

* * *

 

They camped out in the living room. Even Mrs Bennett herself had insisted on waiting up for North (and wasn't the poor guy going to be in for a shock when he came down the chimney? Jack, wedged between Jamie and Sophie on the couch, couldn't repress a grin at the thought).

"What are you smiling about?" Mrs Bennett asked. She set a tray of hot chocolate down on the coffee table and started passing the mugs around.

"Just picturing North's face when he realises you can see him," Jack replied before blowing on his drink.

As if on cue, there was a loud thud from the roof.

"Speak of the devil."

Mrs Bennett sprang up from the seat she'd only just taken, mug clasped tightly in anticipation. Jamie and Sophie sat up straighter where they were – they were as excited as ever, but they'd done this enough times now that the shock factor had worn off. Soot started raining down from the chimney, and, in the next instant, there was North, brushing himself off as he hauled himself and his sack into the room.

"Jamie, Sophie," North grinned as soon as he spotted them. "And Jack, my boy!"

"Hey, North," Jack waved, simultaneous with the kids' twin cries of "Santa!"

"I know Jack has not been," North sent a pointed look Jack's way, "but have the two of you been good this year?"

"Yes!"

"Good! Then Jack has not rubbed off on you too much!"

"I resent that," Jack said. He glanced at Mrs Bennett. She was as pale as a sheet and her eyes were practically bulging from her head.

North must have noticed his divided attention, because he turned, finally spotting her. He froze almost comically, expression morphing to match hers.

Jack watched them stare each other down for a long moment before loudly clearing his throat. "So, uh, North, meet Mrs Bennett."

Mrs Bennett thrust her hand out, only to realise it was the one still holding the hot chocolate. She quickly switched it. "Hi," she breathed. "You're real."

North blinked, snapping out of his stupor. "Hello," he returned the gesture. He looked quickly from her to Jack, eyes questioning. Jack had never seen him look so confused or out of his depth. He almost felt bad for having instigated it. Almost. "I have never met an adult believer."

"I daresay I wouldn't be one, but, well," she gestured vaguely at Jack.

"Yes," North agreed, clearly not realising what she was implying. "You have very good children."

Mrs Bennett smiled – the same smile she'd gotten when she'd revealed to Jamie and Sophie that she could see Jack. It was knowing, mischievous. Jack liked to think he was somehow responsible for it. "I do," she said. "All three of them. Though I've recently learned that one of them is technically my uncle, give or take several 'greats'."

Jack didn't know whether to laugh or bang his head against the coffee table. He hadn't actually gotten around to telling the Guardians (or anyone, for that matter) that the Bennetts were related to him. This wasn't really how he'd pictured it going down, either. And North – poor, poor North – looked like his brain was about to fry from information overload.

Jack jumped up from his spot, putting his mug down on the table. "Um, so there's something I should probably tell you," he said sheepishly.

North nodded, visibly distracted. "Yes, my boy, but perhaps it can wait until tomorrow," he suggested reluctantly.

"Right. Deadline."

"You are coming to party, yes?" When Jack nodded, he continued, "Good. We will discuss then."

By the time Jack got to said party, he had no doubt that the other Guardians would already know everything. North was probably the spirit world's biggest gossip. But he supposed it was probably time they knew.

"In meantime," North dug into his sack and pulled out two immaculately wrapped presents, which he then cheerily passed to Jamie and Sophie, "I have presents to deliver! Merry Christmas!" And then he was gone, back up the chimney and on his way as quickly as he'd come.

As soon as the sound of hooves faded, Mrs Bennett sagged bonelessly into her chair.

"Are you okay?" Jack asked nervously. Had he just indirectly broken her?

But Mrs Bennett only beamed at him. "Santa! He's actually _real_! And… Russian?"

Jack let out a silent sigh of relief. He would probably still hold off on introducing her to the others, though. If she was confused about a Russian Santa, she was definitely not ready for an Australian Easter Bunny, Indian Tooth Fairy, or a star Sandman. From the looks on Jamie and Sophie's faces, they whole-heartedly agreed.

* * *


	127. Bitten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hngh
> 
> Requested by Ink

"I can't believe this! After everything I do for you, this is the thanks I get?! I didn't even _touch_ you!"

The criminal reared up and hissed at him, as if preparing to strike again.

Lleu angrily shook his finger. "Don't you take that tone with me, you… you… you goth spaghetti noodle!"

The snake lunged at him, and this time Lleu, seeing it coming, managed to step back and out of the way in time to avoid it.

"Unbelievable!" he cried. "Just for that I'm going to make the next few days overcast so you'll be slow and sluggish! Try biting innocent passersby when you don't have the energy to move!"

The snake decided it had had enough of him, though, and quickly slithered off in the opposite direction. Lleu scowled after it, indignant.

"That's right, you ingrate! Run!"

With a huff, he plonked himself down on the ground and pulled his shirt off. It had been a long time since he'd been bitten by a snake, but he thought he still remembered what he was supposed to do. Bandage it, for one. His shirt didn't make a great bandage, but he made do, wrapping it as tightly around his leg as he could.

 _Now what?_ he wondered. He was in Australia – the Outback, to be precise – so there was probably, like, a 90% chance the criminal snake had been venomous. Which meant he would probably need some medical attention. Soonish. Very soonish. So far the bite wasn't even hurting at all, and there weren't any other symptoms beyond his great annoyance, but he knew it was only a matter of time.

He could try and fly back to Mom's place, he supposed; no doubt she would know exactly what to do. But that would take at least an hour, probably longer, and that was more time than he had to work with. Someone closer, then. Hmm. Who lived in Australia? Well, there were a whole bunch of native spirits that would probably be more than capable of giving him a hand, but he'd have to find them first, and he didn't know them very well. Would it be weird if he just turned up and asked for help? Or would they be chill with it?

 _Oh, hey_ , he thought, _chill._ Jack Frost was chill. Not in Australia though, and probably didn't know anything about snake bites (and honestly if Lleu ever caught that boy daring to go into the Outback there would be hell to pay), but that thought led to another one: Bunnymund. He lived somewhere around there, didn't he? And he was one of those herbal remedy nuts or whatever; he probably had scores of ways to deal with snake bites. _And_ there was the added benefit that they were acquainted, and that Jack would probably freeze his fluffy tail if he refused to help. Win-win.

"Right," he grunted, pulling himself back to his feet and jumping up into the air. "Wind, let's go rabbit hunting."

 

* * *

 

Jack thumped the ground with the butt of his staff. The eggs immediately swarmed towards him, and he moved closer to the dye river before repeating the action. Preparations for Easter were well underway, and he'd taken a break from winter to give Bunny a hand when the latter had expressed a concern that, given the population growth in some areas and the subsequent increase in the number of required eggs, he would be hard-pressed to get everything done in time. Bunny had grumbled about not needing help and that he could 'handle it', but it was half-hearted at best, and he ultimately hadn't put up much of a fight.

Which was just as well, Jack thought; they didn't have time to waste arguing over the inevitable.

At the moment, he'd been put on shepherding duty. It was his job to guide the new eggs down to the river where they could get their base coats, before going off to the vines and Bunny for extra detail. It wasn't a particularly complicated job, but it was kind of fun having them flock to him like tiny disfigured sheep.

"Here's another batch," he announced as they reached the bank.

Bunny looked up from the opposite bank where he was working on some already-dyed eggs to watch the new ones dive into the river. "Good job, Frostbite," he said. "Just another couple million or so googies to go."

"Another _couple million?!_ " Jack gaped. "Geez, you really do need all the help you can get." They'd already done a couple million, and it had taken weeks. Thankfully, there was still a month and a bit before Easter.

"There're a lot of kids," Bunny pointed out, returning his focus to the egg in his hand.

Well, he had a point. Jack shrugged and turned, ready to head back to get the next batch of eggs, only to stop when a strong wind blew through the Warren, nearly knocking him off his feet.

"Oi, Frostbite!" Bunny yelled. "What have I told ya about–?!"

"It wasn't me!" Jack cut him off, spinning back around to glare at him.

"Who else could it've been?! Wind like that doesn't happen naturally down here, and you're the only one present with that kinda power!"

"Are you _dense?_ Ignoring the fact that I _promised_ not to use my powers while I'm helping, that wind was hot! I'm a _winter_ spirit!"

Bunny huffed angrily, obviously having no retort but not ready to back down.

Neither was Jack. "Either there's a big hole in your Warren or–" He cut himself off as a thought occurred to him. The wind hadn't been natural – that much was obvious. Wind didn't behave like that unless it was being directed, or it was acting on someone else's behalf. His own wind had done similar things on occasion. Which meant…

Bunny was staring at him oddly. His glare had softened into more of a worried frown. "Or what?" he prompted.

Jack's eyes widened as the implications hit him. "Or something's wrong," he said. He took off at a sprint, heading the direction the wind had come from. Behind him, he could hear Bunny chasing after him, calling for him to stop and explain himself. "Direct me," he said aloud. The hot wind surged up again at his prompting, urging him on to the Warren's main entrance and up to the surface.

Stepping out into the heat of the summer Outback was like throwing himself into a wall of fire, and he staggered slightly at the intensity of it.

"Can't stay out here for long," he muttered. Even under the shade of the tree that marked the tunnel he'd come through wasn't enough to protect him from it, and already he could feel himself starting to sweat. "Which way?"

The summer wind pushed at him, and Jack took off with a gust of his own. It didn't take long to find exactly what he was looking for.

Lleu was lying face-down on the side of a badly corrugated road, shirtless – though Jack quickly realised why; it had been used as a makeshift bandage on his leg.

"Lleu?" Jack called hesitantly. He came to land and gently used the crook of his staff to lift Lleu's head slightly.

"Oh no," Lleu said dazedly. "I'm hallucinating." He then proceeded to roll onto his back. His breathing was laboured, like he couldn't get enough air.

Jack scanned him over briefly, but the only obvious sign of injury was the shirt around his leg. "What's wrong?"

"You already know that, Imaginary Snow Cone," he panted. "Figment of my… of my imagination and all that."

"Humour me."

"Knock knock."

"It's an expression!"

Lleu squinted up at him, face pinched in confusion. "You're supposed to say… 'who's there'." He suddenly groaned, curling in on himself and wrapping his arms around his gut.

"What happened?" Jack pressed. The heat was starting to get to him, and that, alongside Lleu's refusal to be cooperative, was starting to make him frustrated.

"Got bitten," came the quiet response. "The jerk."

Well, suffice to say that this was pretty bad then. Jack crouched down near Lleu's leg, but the shirt blocked any view of the bite and he wasn't prepared to remove it. "Got bitten by what?"

The only reply he received was an incoherent grunt.

"Lleu? Got bitten by what? A snake?" A snake bite was probably the most likely, given where they were, but there were plenty of other things to get bitten by.

"I didn't even touch it!" Lleu cried, which Jack took as confirmation. "I just walked past! And… bit me! Who does it think it is?! King of… of the Outback?! I'm gonna… find… one of those cackle birds. You know the ones. Kooka-thing. And then… we'll see how _it_ likes being bitten!"

"I think you'd better hold off on the revenge plot," Jack told him. "That snake was probably venomous."

Lleu wheezed. It might have been a laugh, but it was hard to say.

Jack didn't know enough about snakes or first aid to know what to do in this situation. Bunny probably would, but he'd have to get Lleu back to the Warren first. "Can you get up?"

Lleu gave it his best effort, but he only managed to stay on his feet for a second before he sagged back down to the ground. "Hey," he said after he'd caught his breath. "Do you think I'll get superpowers out of this?"

"You already have superpowers."

"Yeah but, like… snake powers. Snakeman. The Serpent."

"Moon, I hope not."

Lleu pouted. "You're no fun. Which is weird. Since you're supposed to be Imaginary Jack. And he's… the _embodiment_ of fun."

"Oi, Jack!"

Jack spun on his heel. Bunny had finally caught up to him. "Oh thank Mother Nature," he sighed in relief.

Bunny skidded to a halt beside him, his surprise evident on his face. "What the hell happened here?"

"He said he got bitten by a snake," Jack quickly filled him in.

"What'd it look like?"

"Angry," Lleu supplied unhelpfully. "Oh, hey, Bun. Was lookin' for you."

Bunny scowled at him, in no mood for games. "The snake, mate. What colour was it. Describe it to me."

"Uhhh… long? Dark coloured but kinda lighter in spots? Brown…ish?"

"Any patterns or distinctive markings?"

"No? It was kinda speckled but only a little?"

Bunny's frown deepened as he turned to Jack. "If I were to take a guess," he said, "I'd say it was a taipan."

"Is that bad?" Jack asked, glancing back down at Lleu.

"Yes. Come on, mate," Bunny reached out and scooped Lleu up like he weighed nothing. "Let's get ya to the Warren." He tapped his foot twice and a tunnel opened. At his gesture, Jack jumped down first.

"Wow," he heard Lleu murmur as Bunny quickly followed, "you're really soft."

"If ya start pettin' me I'll drop ya," Bunny warned.

"I think I'm gonna hurl."

"If ya throw up on me, I'll do worse than drop ya."

Fortunately for Bunny, they made it back to his burrow/hut thing without incident. As soon as Lleu was deposited in the nest, Bunny rushed over to a cupboard on the other side of the small space and started rummaging through it until he pulled out a large first aid kit.

"Lucky I still have some antivenom," he said, coming back over and dumping the kit at his side. "I'm gonna set up the drip. Frostbite, I'll get ya to go over that leg with a proper bandage. Make sure it's nice and tight."

"Did you say drip?" Lleu gasped, pushing himself up on his elbows so he could watch Bunny start preparing an IV. "Ah no. I'm totally fine. Don't need that."

Bunny looked decidedly unconvinced.

"Really! It's not even as bad as that one time with the scarecrow and the cats! I'm fine. Totally fine. Definitely do not need an IV."

"I don't even want to know," Jack declared. He grabbed the first bandage he found and, pulling his sleeves down over his hands, started winding it around the shirt already tied to Lleu's leg. Lleu winced, but otherwise made no indication that he even knew what Jack was doing.

"Scared of needles?" Bunny guessed. He emptied a small vial of antivenom into the saline and grabbed the needle.

"I'm not _scared_ ," Lleu countered in a way that completely contradicted his words.

"Don't worry, mate. It'll only pinch for a sec."

Lleu groaned dramatically but didn't put up much of a fight when Bunny grabbed his arm. "OW!"

"I haven't even started yet!"

 

* * *

 

"He'll be okay, right?" Jack asked an hour later.

Lleu had dozed off not long after the IV had been inserted (either that or he'd fainted), which was probably for the best. As soon as Jack had finished rebandaging the leg, Bunny had sent him off to the Pole to get a couple of yetis. Apparently organ problems like kidney failure were a possibility, and Bunny didn't have the equipment to deal with that at the Warren.

So now he was in the Pole's infirmary, North standing to his right while one of the yeti nurses checked Lleu over. Bunny had only stayed long enough to make sure they had everything handled before heading back to the Warren. Nobody faulted him for it; Easter was looming, after all. Jack would go back and give him a hand again once he was sure Lleu was on the mend.

"He will be fine," North assured him. "Leg will likely hurt for few weeks, but I do not think there will be any serious lasting effects."

He'd no doubt complain about it like it was the end of the world, but lucky for Jack he'd be far away and wouldn't have to listen to it. "Bunny wants to know as soon as he's coherent again so he can yell at him for antagonising a snake."

North nodded sagely. "He is foolish to not show snake proper respect. They do not attack without reason."

"He probably didn't see it," Jack defended, though whether or not that was actually true was up for debate. Lleu didn't seem the type to go out of his way to harass a snake, but at the same time Jack wouldn't put it past him to have a go at one if he felt it justified.

"I _didn't_ ," came a slurred voice from the bed.

The yeti stepped back out of the way, giving Jack and North full view of Lleu's grumpy, disorientated expression. He looked so indignant at the possibility that they doubted him that Jack was inclined to believe him.

"Of course," North agreed amiably. "But does not matter now. Rest, my friend. You will start to feel better in a few days."

"A few _days_?!" Lleu let his head fall back against the pillow with a self-pitying huff. "Stupid snake," he grumbled. "Stupid venom. Stupid body. If I hadn't let Mom bribe me into being a spirit this never would have happened."

"Get some rest," North told him, placing a comforting hand on Lleu's shoulder. "We will be here if you need us."

Lleu grumbled some more, but it wasn't long until his tiredness won out over his stubbornness and he was once again dead to the world.

Jack turned to North after a short moment. "I'd better let Mom know, in case there was anything important he was supposed to do." She'd probably fret like all hell when he told her, but it was better than risking her being angry if some storm or something got missed. Lleu would probably enjoy the attention, too.

North nodded in agreement, and together they headed back out of the room, leaving the yeti with their patient. "Make sure she knows she is welcome to come if she would like."

Jack seriously doubted anyone could stop her, but the thought was appreciated. "Shall do," he said, though he figured North would quickly come to regret the offer when he realised just how imposing Mother Nature could be when she was worried. Or angry. Or both.

 _Oh well_ , he thought, jumping out the first window he came across. _Live and learn._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kids, leave snakes alone


End file.
